The iPistol

Is this Steve Jobs' latest effort to persuade people to use his new products?  Will it grab more new customers than the iPad?  In these troubled times, perhaps it's just the thing.

Maybe thieves will use it even though it costs more than a regular pistol.

"It just works," they'll exclaim.

Then they can keep scrupulous records of whom they've robbed, how much they got, where they robbed them, and calculate the best times and places to rob people.  Doubtless if there isn't an app for that one will pop up on iTunes any moment now.

What won't they think of next?

(via)

Memorial Day Plagiarism...

...from that wild and wacky Sarah Palin.

The Little Rascals Get Schooled

Thanks to Pogue for sending this video!  There seems to be a substitute in for Miss Crabtree today, and the kids are not learning the Gettysburg Address. (Farina said it was Sixteen Forty Four South Main Street.)

Happy Three-Day Weekend!

from the entire staff here at NYC Educator!

We hope you do something fun and forget everything you read here, at the very least until Tuesday.

Change Is Inevitable--Except in Vending Machines

In my school, teachers struggle with inadequate facilities like trailers, half rooms, and unventilated monstrosities even as classes take place outside and in the halls.  As if that weren't enough, Mayor Bloomberg's favorite snack company has come to town and set its machine right outside the worst classroom in the school.  Apparently, disrupting class is no problem as long as there are potato chips that need selling.

And it turns out potato chips are fine for kids as long as they're baked.  You see, if the empty calories and sodium don't arrive fried, they're good for you.  Who would've thunk it?

But it's OK.  Fortunately, the company is not unionized, and indulges in the sort of practices Mayor Bloomberg would like to see as the norm.  This story is from a few months back, but I just saw it--and here's who got selected:

Answer Vending, a Westchester-based firm, was ordered in June 2008 by the State Department of Labor to ante up $116,000. This included penalties and back pay to 21 employees it was found to have shortchanged. Answer executives didn't respond to questions last week, but Labor Department spokeswoman Michelle Duffy said the fines are still outstanding: "They haven't paid."

They sound like a fine bunch to me, just the sort of people our venerable leaders love to get into bed with.  And to help out, they've secured the services of Octagon Vending, the company that set up the Snapple deal, making sure Snapple alone could re-do its bid before short-changing the city of some 5-million dollars.   Naturally the Panel for Educational Policy voted to select this company.  Here are a few more of their bonafides:

What the workers did tell organizers was that they often had to work 50- and 60-hour weeks, without overtime, and that wages were often paid partly in cash. They received no benefits, they said. 

Now there's a company after Joel Klein's heart.  The unions say with card check they could organize in a flash, but President Change We Can Union Bust With has not managed to keep his promise to pass a bill enacting it.   So what does Octagon Vending do, exactly, besides deliver less cash than promised?

"We're paying them 15 to 18 percent of the contract, and it's not even clear what they're doing," said Patrick Sullivan, a public school parent who is Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer's representative to the panel and who voted against Octagon. "There was no assessment of their prior performance."

The much ballyhooed Money for Nothing Dire Straits sang about.  But at least they gave it to the highest bidder, didn't they?

Education officials admitted last week that the formal contract authorization request that they submitted to the panel described the only unionized firm, Canteen Vending, as offering the highest guarantees for revenue to be paid to the schools. Canteen was rejected, the report stated, only because its "vending machine operation/monitoring systems are inferior to the competitors."


The department's spokesman said this was "a misprint." Wasn't this a pretty long and involved sentence for a misprint? "I have no idea what that's about," he said. And the statement that the losing bidder made the highest offer? That was a mistake, too.

Hmm...well, if The Department of Education says so, it must be correct.  After all, they never lie.  So let's just take them at their word.

But--do we believe the first thing they said or the second?

So many questions, so little time.  And so many contracts to dole out to union-busters.

Dress Code Enforcement; Or, Yes, Please Give Me One More Thing to Do

As the weather grows warm and no climate control-type relief is in sight, my kiddies have taken to wearing fewer and fewer clothes to school. Which means that dress code policing has become one of my jobs.

Now, I'm all for children dressing sensibly for school. I wore a uniform growing up and neither my sharp sartorial sense nor, God forbid, my self-esteem was damaged. I would happily teach in a uniform school or send my own children to one. But alas, my current school simply has a somewhat vague dress policy.

For example, no one seems to know the rule on shorts. The loose longish cargo shorts that the boys wear and the cute Bermudas that are popular with the girls seem to fine to me, so I've never given a kid a hard time about them. But my AP recently claims that they can only be worn for gym. I've no idea if this rule is official or, if it is, why.

As well, if a child is dressed improperly, I am supposed to send that child directly to the office to either change clothes or wait for a parent or guardian to bring a change of clothes. Now, again, I am theoretically in favor of a policy like this. However, in the recent past at my school, a child has told a teacher to go f--- herself only to be promptly returned to the classroom, and another child called a classmate a name that I cannot even attempt to partially censor on a family blog and faced no consequences at all. So perhaps you can see my hesitation to remove a child who is otherwise productive and pleasantly behaved from my classroom.

I probably have two options: continue to mostly ignore all but the most egregious dress code violations, or simply send every single violation to the office. It will certainly free up some oxygen in my classroom to do the latter. But something tells me that my administration would actually secretly prefer me to do the former so as not to clutter their office.

I have not removed a child from my classroom at all this year, not even once. I have managed all disruptions by myself. I sort of don't want to ruin my perfect record. But I'd rather not be disparaged for not doing Part #647 of my job, which is, apparently, Dress Code Enforcement.

What do you think?

All the Propaganda That's Fit to Print

by special guest blogger North Brooklyn

     Steve Brill, whose last NYT article detailed why executives should make more money than g-d, has laid out the new education plan. Millions of dollars are to be paid out to develop data systems that will never affect the education of one child in this country. We old spinster teachers are wisely going along. We’ve made our case for years that these data systems are unworkable; that education is more complicated than that. But we are not stupid. We are not going to stand in the way of great gobs of money flowing into the coffers of the grand state of New York.

     Brill claims that by last March, Duncan had forced more school reform that the country had seen in decades-without spending a nickel. Standing around some state rotunda hearing a few education bureaucrats say, “Sure, Arne. We can do that,” does not qualify as reform.

     But Brill insists there are important forces at work; typified by Jon Schnur’s who heads the Manhattan based New Leaders for New Schools and the author of the RTTT spin. Ever heard of him? Me neither. These forces are blogging and emailing one another [so are the aficionados of Mary Kay cosmetics-doesn’t mean they are a force]. These forces went to an Ivy League school, taught for two years as TFA and have moved up the ranks and now run city or state systems.

     Who, the gentle reader might ask. Michelle Rhee, who can’t figure out a budget? Joel Klein, who can’t figure out how to get the yellow buses to the kids on time? Oh, those guys, yeah. That’s a rock solid education group.

     The second force at work, according to Brill, is a new crop of Democratic politicians--including Obama--who seem to be willing to challenge the teachers unions. Who wouldn’t? Have you taken a look at the bump in the polls every time a politician intones the words ‘bad teachers’? If I were running for office I’d blame the teachers for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

     Third, there are the powerful money interests like Bill Gates.  Bill,  at one time, didn’t think poor people needed computers, but learned very quickly that there is a lot of money to be shaken from that tree.

     And finally there is the charter school movement--an educational prairie fire that educates less that 5% of the children in this country and is rarely monitored except when something really bad happens.

     There is much ado about the sausage making going on and it pains Brill to report that the UFT and AFT want a fair process in place. Frankly it doesn’t pain me at all to write that American teachers insist on being treated fairly even if it gives the education industrialists heartburn. 

     Had Brill stopped there, it would have been enough. But that’s not Brill’s style. He compared two schools in NYC; one public, one charter, both in the same building. The charter school was lovely and the public school was not. Brill failed to note fundamental differences between the two school populations,  and certainly every NYC public school puts its best foot forward when the NY Times comes to call. Assuming Brill is writing the truth, he slipped in unannounced. This makes him an intruder. I’m sure he wouldn’t see it that way. I’m sure he sees himself as a nice guy who would hurt another person. But if he doesn’t even understand what unlawful public school intruders represent he's utterly unqualified to comment on the work of teachers.

     So, a plan will be created. Why? Because the Kid in Chief, Obama, and his basketball buddy, Duncan, love it. And the education bosses love it. And Jon Schnur’s parents love it because now he’ll move into his own apartment and start picking up the tab on his college loans because he is going to be making buckets of money.

   And public school children are left behind yet again.

Those Awful Lazy No-Good Unionized Public School Teachers...Where Can We Sign Our Kid Up with One?

Well, it's not a pretty time to be a UFT member, if there ever was one. You scarcely need to scroll back even a week here at one of the top 20 teacher blogs to find tales of demoralization, indignance, and ineptitude by (un)elected officials that will make whatever hair is left on your head curl. But every so often, a little gem comes along, a comment so perfect and serendipitously obvious that it makes me smile a secret little teacher smile. This comment slipped in under the radar at GothamSchools, but I'd like to highlight it here.

Context: over 1000 kindergarteners-to-be have been lost in the shuffle here in NYC, some shipped to schools several miles from their homes. This might be understandable in the Alaskan tundra or the lonesome prairie, where there might be only one school around for miles. But here in NYC, the problem is overcrowding for which the school system did not adequately plan, despite the fact that they saw it coming. Parents are understandably confused and upset. After all, kindergarteners aren't ninth graders with MetroCards and subway maps. These are the kids who can't yet tie their own shoes or print their own names. I can understand why parents would like them close to home.

But anyway, parents citywide are pretty upset. "But wait," any casual viewer of the television news or the Post might ask, "don't the public schools all suck? Aren't they full of those lazy good-for-nothing unionized teachers?"

Indeed, right? So why, the commenter asks craftily, are parents fighting over slots at their neighborhood schools? Don't they want their kids in those supposedly better charter schools? Are they all out-of-touch, oblivious, negligent parents?

Or could it be that neighborhood schools, full of those worthless unionized teachers, are actually worth fighting over?

Thank you, thank you very much

It looks like we've been listed as one of the top 20 teacher blogs!  What taste and discernment they've shown to select us.  In fact, I too would have selected us.

I knew this blogging thing would pay off one of these days.  I can only hope Miss Eyre doesn't ask for a raise.

I want to thank all the people who made this possible--Joel Klein, Michael Bloomberg, Randi Weingarten, my dog Bertha, and last but not least, all the commenters with whom I argue on a regular basis.

Now With Only Half the Crap!

Incredibly, that's pretty much the line UFT central has been using to promote their latest evaluation deal.  Only 20% of your evaluation will be determined by standardized tests, using an unproven and highly questionable technique called "value added."  (Another 20% will be rated using local tests, portfolios, or some other thing.)  This is a good thing, they say, because it could be 50%.  In fact, that's what it is in Colorado, and AFT President Randi Weingarten supported the bill that enabled it.

And that's not all the venerable Ms. Weingarten enabled in Colorado:

Under the legislation, which garnered bipartisan support, teachers would be evaluated every year and students' academic progress would count for half the instructors' overall rating. Elementary- and high-school teachers would need three consecutive years of positive evaluations to earn tenure, which guarantees them an appeals process before they can be fired. 

Educators rated "ineffective" two years in a row would be stripped of tenure protection and revert to probationary status. They could earn back job protection after three straight years of satisfactory evaluations.

UFT teachers already work without tenure protection in the Green Dot charter school, among others.   With an openness to agreements like these, tenure could come to mean little or nothing to public school teachers as well.  The Unity/ New Action coalition that brought us leaders like Ms. Weingarten has now given us President Michael Mulgrew, who opted to negotiate this deal in secret and have the UFT Delegate Assembly rubber-stamp it for him.

The argument I've been hearing, incredibly, is it could have been twice as crappy as it was.  The truth is, while the agreement may indeed contain half the crap, or even less, crap is not on the short list of what today's teachers need most.  I know, because not a single teacher has told me so, and I talk to teachers all the time.

Perhaps union presidents should consider doing the same.

Thanks to Fred Klonsky

A Teacher Speaks

Here's a letter from the NY Daily News Voice of the People section:

Pay for performance

Flushing: When our soldiers and sailors are paid more or less depending on whether we're winning or losing wars; when law enforcement officers are compensated according to whether crime rates are rising; when firefighters are paid according to the number of homes that burn, and when members of Congress are paid based on the state of the union - then, perhaps, I will listen to those who would tie compensation of K-12 educators to student performance.

Mary Tortorella

What's America Coming To?

Below you'll find a potpourri of quotes from NYC Educator's much-beloved Fox News.  Since they're "fair and balanced," they share with us all sorts of information we don't get elsewhere, and thank goodness for that.  I'm no fan of Barack Obama, but the repeated assertions that he's an anti-white racist are ridiculous, scraping the bottom of the barrel.  You have to ask yourself what sort of person would entertain such ridiculous notions, and the answer is not at all uplifting.

But the thing that really takes the cake here, a little later in the video, is the worldview of prominent teacher-basher John Stossel, who asserts:

"Private businesses ought to get to discriminate. And I won't won't ever go to a place that's racist and I will tell everybody else not to and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist." 

Now there's something, in twenty-first century America, that you don't hear every day.   So you have to ask yourself--does he really believe such nonsense?  Or are his "reformer" pals putting him up to it?  Is it a test balloon?  Maybe after they destroy public education, they have other "improvements" in mind.

John Stossel can't wait to return to the "good old days" of segregated lunch counters.  It's OK, apparently, because he won't eat there, and after publicly defending them below, claims he'll speak against them in some hypothetical future.  And for espousing such viewpoints, Rupert Murdoch pays him, not to mention his assorted pals below, a substantial salary.

Lessons Learned

Mr. Doppler was teaching English.  This was not such a bad thing.  He spoke English, and heard it pretty much everywhere he went, so it didn't represent much of a hardship.  But he wondered whether or not they should have assigned him to teach the senior thesis project.  After all, he was a gym teacher, and the last time he had done a senior thesis, or even read one, well, he couldn't remember.

But the kids weren't concerned.

"Don't worry mister," they assured him.  "We're seniors.  We don't have to do anything."

That didn't sound good to Mr. Doppler.  But he plodded through the book the English AP had given him.  One day five kids were absent.  The next day seven.  More and more, kids disappeared.  They didn't do homework.  Except for three.  They did everything.

When the paper was due, twelve of the 34 kids in the class submitted papers.  The three working kids did very well, Mr. Doppler thought.  He gave them grades of 100.

A few of the others who had cut fewer than fifty times managed to pass, though Mr. Doppler felt he was overly generous.  The ones who handed in papers with the AOL logo still on them he didn't pass.  It was ridiculous, he thought.  So he failed almost everyone.

The principal approached him.  "Mr. Doppler, we don't have room for all of those kids.  You have to pass them all."

So he did.  And waddya know, the kids were right.

But he never taught English again.

"Stop Listening to the Teachers' Union! Listen to Parents!": Miss Eyre Agrees

I sure do love that ad that keeps playing on NY1 every morning while I'm trying to catch the traffic report. You know, "Stop listening to the teachers' union! Listen to parents!", that one? It brightens my Cheerios in the wee hours before I leave for my cushy union-protected public school job in my fifteen-year-old car to a school in which I am down to my last ream of student-donated copy paper before I have to go and buy my own. In fact, I AGREE.

What is the union saying right now that we'd want the city or the state to pay attention to? Not much, from the looks of things. So it's not going to make much difference if the government makes it official that they're not listening.

Listen to parents? Do it. Listen to parents who advocate for class size reduction funding actually being spent on, you know, class size reduction. Listen to parents who don't want charter schools taking over space in their schools. Listen to parents who, in late May, still have no idea where their children might be going to kindergarten. Because the city and the state are sure as heck not listening to them now.

I guess that ad has just grown on me, you know?

Duncan Doesn't Think Anyone Opposes Charter Schools

It's interesting to see the US Secretary of Education make blanket statements like that.  Actually, what he said was no one opposes "good" charter schools.  So what it comes down to is this--what are "good" charter schools?  Well, clearly they must be the ones that replace "bad" public schools.

Perhaps it's KIPP that's "good."  It's good for our kids to spend many extra hours and days at school.   They learn to "be nice and work hard." That trains them, I suppose, to work many extra hours as adults.  That's a good thing, because over in Europe people work far fewer hours.  That, I'm told, makes them "socialists," which is scary and dangerous.  Even worse, everyone over there gets health care, even if they work for Taco Bell.  They have unions that make demands, have power, and go on strike.  This is also bad, because it indicates they are neither working hard nor being nice.

But the fact that Duncan thinks "no one" opposes whatever it is he's determined good charters to be is indicative of the bubble he's in.  The New York Times recently posted a story suggesting charters don't produce better results than public schools.  That's remarkable, considering the fact that 100% of the  kids who attend have proactive parents. 

I wonder whether Duncan knows or speaks to anyone who isn't either affiliated with charters, a hedge fund manager, or a politician owned by Bill Gates.  He doesn't seem to require a lot of input.  After all, his policies seem not to have worked in Chicago, yet he's replicating them nationwide anyway.   I wonder who he consulted before he applauded the firing of an entire staff at a Rhode Island public school.  Certainly he didn't squander his valuable time talking to teachers.

Second (and Third and Fourth and...) Chances

This post by Jay Mathews had me thinking about classroom management and discipline today. You should click over and read the whole column, but in case you don't, Greene and the commenters there ponder whether or not students should lose major privileges, like a year-end trip, as a consequence for (I assume) flagrant and repeated bad behavior.

A couple of years ago, I had two very difficult students in one of my classes. They were difficult in most of the same ways: severely disruptive, rude, disrespectful, and generally out of control. I was a youngster back then and my classroom management was, I'll be honest, lacking. But at the same time, I knew that other teachers in the school had also had a hard time with them.

We had planned a year-end trip for the kids, and my co-teacher and I were worried about taking these two students. We asked our principal if we could write into the permission slip that if a student was suspended, they couldn't go on the trip. Both Frick and Frack were one more infraction away from being suspended, so we figured that this would serve either as an incentive for them to straighten up and fly right or as a warning that we were serious about taking the trip away from them, or possibly both. Our principal agreed.

Frick and Frack both got themselves suspended. And we had them removed from the trip.

Here's where the story changes.

Frick remained his surly, unmanageable self for the rest of the year, earning himself a second suspension. But Frack changed. He was truly disappointed that he missed the trip and begged to be allowed to go to the senior dance. Our principal said that if he stayed out of trouble between the trip and the dance, he could go. Well, Frack was an angel for those three weeks. He came to the dance on his very best behavior and conducted himself with dignity during graduation.

What did I learn from this experience? A few things:

1.) If you're going to threaten to take something away from a kid, be sure it's yours to take. Make sure your supervisor is going to back you up.

2.) Whatever you're going to take has to be meaningful. Frick obviously didn't care about being excluded from the trip. But Frack did.

3.) Remember that if you're taking away something like a kid's recess time, you may well be punishing yourself. It happens, and sometimes it's appropriate (unfortunately for you), but plan for it.

4.) Most importantly, if you're going to take something away, I think that you're more likely to see behavior change if the kid still has a chance to redeem him/herself. Can you take one thing away but leave the door open for something else? Can you work on a plan with the kid to help him/her "earn" the privilege back? I've seen that work with my classes quite a bit. And if you can mess with the kid or the class for a little while before you offer them the path to redemption, it works even better. Let them think it's gone forever for a short time.

Taking stuff away from kids is no fun. Even for your most nightmarish students, I bet you'll feel a little sad when you do it. But, done properly, it sends a serious message about behavioral expectations and teaches kids a real lesson. And, hey, you might just have a Frack in your class for whom finally experiencing real consequences actually has the intended effect.

Today's Special--Good News!

Fred Klonsky reports that the Rhode Island teachers who were fired (with the blessing of President Change You Can Bring to the Unemployment Line and his stooge Arne) have gotten their jobs back!  Personally, I'm grateful for each and every crumb of lucidity in this country.  I'd like a little more clarity as to what the agreement entails, but it's good they stopped this particularly boneheaded action.

Fred also notes that "reformers" are upset with this turn of events.  To serve kids better, apparently, we have to make sure they grow up in a world in which they can be fired at will by adminstrators who refuse to take any responsibility for the school systems they run.  By firing their teachers, we also absolve politicians, communities, and the moneyed interests that manipulate education for their own self-serving ends.  Instead, we dump it all on the shoulders of working Americans--which most if not all public school kids are destined to become.  

Money quote, from Fred:

"They only win when teachers and students lose."

Mr. Slick

Mr. Slick is not at all upset at the new agreement to judge teachers by test scores.  That's because he's going to cheat.  If kids get wrong answers, he'll simply erase them and make them all better.  This will ensure improvement on a regular basis.  After all, his predecessors are not likely to have juked the stats the way he's going to.

His kids are going to show enormous improvement in every area, and it will all be attributable to his excellence as an educator.  There's really no way anyone could determine otherwise, unless a hidden camera catches him erasing and replacing all those pencil marks. 

In fact, maybe Mr. Slick will take a look at  ARIS to make sure he inflates scores in a more believable fashion.  Though it could take ten years, admin might eventually get a clue as to his scam.  Of course, by then he'll have earned merit pay, and likely be an administrator himself.  Maybe he'll be the one who breaks the story about corrupt teachers gaming the system to their advantage.  Stranger things have happened.

But Mr. Slick is not really my concern.  The teachers who really have to worry are those who succeed him.  After all, the test scores will plummet for them, and the system will surely determine they are bad teachers.  They'll be rated "ineffective."  And indeed, their cheating skills do not and did not rival those of Mr. Slick, so maybe they are. 

Perhaps some innovative entrepreneur will provide a cheating course for teachers.  I think there could be big bucks in it, and maybe that's one of the goals of the "reformers" who regularly vilify education schools.

Really Love the iPad?

Here's your chance to get one covered in gold and diamonds for a mere $190,000.  Hurry, though, there's a limited supply!

From the Folks Who Brought You the 2005 Contract:

I'm still trying to get my head around the agreement the UFT and NYSUT made to re-do the teacher evaluation system.  After having read voices like Diane Ravitch and Aaron Pallas on "value-added" measures of teacher effectiveness, I'm fairly convinced that there is no way to use it effectively.  That's one reason I was wary to see the UFT get into bed with Bill Gates and his "Measures of Effective Teaching" program.

Mulgrew told the DA in September that we needed to participate so as to be part of this discussion, but apparently the discussion is moot since they made the deal without even waiting for the results.   There is a Q and A at uft.org which pretty much lays out the union position.   I was very curious about the teacher input I'd been hearing about.

How much say will teachers have in the new system?
Throughout the process, the role of collective bargaining is maintained, and, in many ways, strengthened. All of the elements comprising the composite score must be developed through state and local negotiations. The agreement states that the new teacher evaluation and improvement system would also be a “significant factor” in employment decisions such as a career ladder to positions such as lead teacher, mentor or coach that could lead to supplemental compensation, promotion into administrative positions, and tenure determination as well as in teacher professional development. But how the evaluations will figure into those decisions must be determined locally through collective bargaining. If no agreement can be reached, the old system will remain in place.

 

It appears the "teacher input" is restricted to those who control the union--the folks who brought us the 05 contract which was the best thing since sliced bread (highly overrated when you consider all those artisan breads you can bring home and cut yourself.)  The best I can see is if we don't reach an agreement, the old arrangement stays in place.  If we do reach an agreement, watch the eraser sales at Staples quadruple as teachers and administrators all over the state scramble to inflate scores.

And, as Mr. A Talk pointed out, the Q and A fails to mention you're terminated 60 days after two unfavorable ratings.

What are you going to do if the teacher who preceded you inflated scores?  How will you explain the massive losses you incur by the woeful liability of your incredible honesty?  How are you going to resist your supervisor imploring you to pass that kid who set off the stink bomb while the principal was observing you?

Hey, I hope I'm wrong.  I really, really do.

But these negotiation techniques are beyond my meager comprehension.  When the mayor refuses to give you the pattern, the one he gave all the other unions, the one he's held you to for decades, you don't give him the end of the rubber room.  You make him pay.

And when the morons who write op-eds attack you, you fight back.  You attack them in the media, even if you've blown your advertising budget with a cute but pointless cartoon. You don't appease them.  Why not?  Because when you do, they say it's not good enough and ask for more.

In fact, they don't appreciate our short-sighted, idiotic, pointless giveaways one bit. 

Nor do I, truth be told.