Bloomberg, subprime, for-profit schools, and moral bankruptcy
Anti-Regents Prep
Final Project diverts attention from test prep and makes students and teacher happier
This term I am shepherding two classes of mostly juniors towards New York State’s new Integrated Algebra 2/Trigonometry Regents exam. Yucch.
Like most teachers, I am feeding them the State-supplied sample questions, and teacher-improvised sample questions. I am doing topical reviews, and straight up test prep. I am even running mock exams.
And, like most teachers, running straight, ugly test prep makes me feel lousy. Dirty.
I can’t avoid the test prep. But I can temper it.
Introducing the May/June final project.
Small animal graphs (other small objects may be approved)
Using your graphing calculator, create a graph that resembles a small animal (fish, bird, squirrel, crocodile – use your imagination). The outline should be formed by a variety of curves: parabolas, line segments, sinusoidal graphs, square root graphs, etc. Try to make the endpoints meet.
Turn in:
A hand drawn graph of your animal. You may want to label the endpoints.
The calculator window that the animal was graphed on.
And the list of functions, y1, y2, etc, that were used to produce the animal.
What do you think? I am horrible to divert from the prep they need to do well? Or is there useful embedded stuff that will supplement the regular prep I am doing?
(I gave them an example, the profile of a bird’s head – head and back with a chunk of a cosine, beak with two segments, eye with two semi-circles, breast with a chunk of parabola….)
And I may post interesting submissions, if they are at all interesting.
Advocacy at Gotham Schools?
Albany/City Hall/Tweed stories have been hot the last few weeks, and especially the last few days with Bloomberg’s threat to freeze wages (if he could).
Over at Gotham Schools they’ve been covering the muck, and getting a surge in comments. Gotham Schools has a pro-charter, anti-union lean. I’ve written about it before. It deserves to be looked at more closely. And their owner? founder? backer? seems to be tied up in charter schools. So I look for the lean, and often notice it. (I also can’t help but notice some of the mistakes, but we all make those)
But open advocacy? At least two readers in the last two days have found examples so strong that they complained in the comments. Ok, one of them was me. But judge for yourself:
Yesterday GS ran a piece about “Educators 4 Excellence,” an anti-union group of young mostly-TfA teachers. And they included a fund-raising and support appeal.
Reader Tim responded:
“Hopefully any gotham school readers and or reporters who share our views will help us to continue to build an authentic voice for teachers by donating to our organization.”
Are reporters supposed to share the views of and/or make donations to advocacy groups, or was this tongue-in-cheek?
And the day before there was a piece in which GS essentially advised Bloomberg to stand tough against the UFT, and that while he can’t freeze wages directly, he could refuse to sign a contract with us. I responded:
“All Bloomberg has to do to freeze wages is not sign any contract that includes a raise.”
Did the Mayor’s Office or the Chancellor’s Office suggest to you that they would intentionally stall mediation/negotiations to effectively freeze wages?
Or is Gotham Schools now offering Bloomberg advice on negotiating with the UFT?
I understood their pro-charter, anti-union lean. But this is something else.
Bloomberg’s 0/0 proposal
There’s math people reading this post. The slash in the title “/” is not a division sign. I’m not trying to divide by zero. It is a separator, separating the two raises that Bloomberg thinks New York City teachers should get: 0% for the year starting October 2009 and double that, or 0% for the year starting October 2010.
For the non-math people , yes, I wrote “should get… for the year starting… 2009” Hm. This is a future raise, but it covers time that is already past. We can handle this algebraically with negative numbers. The time, that is.What is negative time? It’s time that already passed. So negative numbers to refer to time. Like October 2009 is -8 (negative eight) months. Negative money would be a pay cut. Let’s stick to negative time.
The money should be strictly non-negative. Though you may want to ask teachers in Detroit about that.
Back to the 0/0 proposal. Klein is a horrible Chancellor, an all round bad guy to work for. He mismanages the system intentionally; he disrupts, disorganizes (though he says “reorganizes” – but that can’t be true. Five reorganizations in less than ten years is massively disorganizing). I’d like to see Klein gone. My caucus, New Action, would like to see Klein gone. One more proposal like this… oh wait, it’s not Klein’s proposal, is it?
I’d still love to see Klein go. He is the worst flesh and blood part of the destruction of our school system. Him and Nadelstern. But this is a Bloomberg proposal. Randi Weingarten used to pretend there was good Mike and bad Joel. Jeez, it makes me feel gross referring to them by first names. Anyhow, good mayor/bad chancellor was never true. The chancellor is more noxious, and I’d love for him to get fired, but the mayor’s at war with us too.
So back to the proposal. 0/0 for two years. Well, no. That’s not the proposal. There is no proposal. Bloomberg went to the press to grandstand, to bully the unions. It might have been different if he came to us to talk. But he didn’t. If he hasn’t proposed this to the people he has to negotiate with, then he hasn’t proposed it. This part Mulgrew clearly got right.
What he didn’t get right? Yeah, those huge concessions over the last few weeks? The more than doubling of the charter cap? Letting teachers get rated by the scores kids get on tests? Didn’t like them then, at all. But at least they bought us some good will… well, no. We offered up far more than we should have, and as a result he publicly attacked us. We don’t win a war, we don’t hold our ground, by hoping the other side will start liking us.
Anyhow, there is another side. Not just the collective disgust with being dictated to, with a mayor grandstanding and demonizing us in the press. There is also a collective sigh of relief that he doesn’t mean to lay anyone off. He didn’t offer that to help us, but all the same, we’ll take it.
How not to make a fraction smaller
From Halfway There. The highlight:
The court solemnly pondered the petitioner’s request, noting the necessity of proportionately balancing the petitioner’s well-being against his responsibility to discharge his legal obligations. Upon consideration, the court ruled that the distrainment of 1/6 of the petitioner’s assets had been too severe and ordered a relaxation of the order. The new order instead stipulated a seizure of 1/5 of his assets.
It’s a cool blog that I haven’t plugged (in a long time? in forever?) Zeno Ferox, the author, teaches math at a college, used to work as a civil servant, and is the liberal son in a conservative, Portuguese farming family in California. Oh, and most of all, is an amazing story teller. About teaching. And about his family. And about crazy republicans. About creationism. I like the one about the cows. A blog of well-told stories.
NYS Integrated Algebra II / Trig – sources for sample exams
A whole bunch of teachers and, I don’t know, thousands of students? around New York State are scrambling. The very first Integrated Algebra 2 /Trig (IA2T) exam is coming two weeks from today, and there are no old exams to practice with.
Practice with old exams? Yup, that’s the favored flavor of test prep in New York State high schools. And we can’t do it!
But no need to climb the walls – there are sources for sample exams, mock exams, best guesses:
- NY State created a single exam, called the Test Sampler. Good chance that the exams match the “feel” and some of the content of the real thing.
- Topical Review sells a teensy booklet with made-up exams and the sampler. I felt the quality was mixed – some of the questions were not so well-written, and some are not in the right style, (and the margins are all wrong so you don’t get the test-taking with inadequate scrap paper experience), but you get what you pay for: $2.50 for six original exams, and a dime for the answer key. And they are overall the right length, something close to the right mix, etc.
- E-math Instruction has a freebie set of five exams. They are formatted right. They have the right feel. Use these.
- Some teachers upstate devised a group of three sample exams. Regents Prep from Oswego. The first one is just a rework of the State sampler, but the other two are original. They are good.
Finally, J-Map (Jefferson Mathematics Project) has a ton of worksheets keyed to individual skills and groups of skills, but no sample exams (that I can find)
Rally to support Bronx High School of Science teachers
After 2 years of harrassment, 20 of 22 teachers in the Bronx Science math department filed a special complaint…
After 2 years of delays, after hours of testimony, the independent arbitrator found that the teachers’ allegations were essentially correct, and proposed remedies….
After two days, the DoE announced they were ignoring the independent arbitrator’s findings and recommendations.
And now, the Bronx Science teachers are asking for your help
| Date: |
Thursday, June 10, 2010
|
| Time: |
4:30pm – 6:00pm
|
| Location: |
Mayor Bloomberg’s house
|
| Street: |
79th St. and 5th Avenue, SW corner
|
| City/Town: |
New York, NY
|
Description
The United Federation of Teachers Chapter at the Bronx High School of Science invites you to join us for a picket of Mayor Bloomberg. We are appealing to Mr. Bloomberg for relief from administrative harassment at our school. Two years ago, twenty math teachers at our school filed a complaint against the harassment and abuse at the hands of their supervisor. Their claim has been upheld by a neutral arbitrator in a recent fact-finding decision, but the schools chancellor Joel Klein has outrageously decided to ignore the fact-finder’s report and take no action.
This choice by the Department of Education will only lead to increasing tension at the school, further demoralization of teachers, and a worsening learning environment for our children. We have no choice but to take our case to Mr. Klein’s boss, Mr. Bloomberg.
Please join us to show solidarity in the face of harassment of newer teachers, veteran educators, and union activists. The DOE and the national media would like to have the public believe that teachers are only disciplined in order to improve educational outcomes, but this fact-finder’s report exposes the fact that good teachers have fallen victim to supervisors who abused their power.
That’s Brooklyn Queens Day. Please join them, support them. The more we stick together, the better we can protect each other.
Protest attack on unarmed Gaza Flotilla
Several hundred people protested today at Times Square.
There will be a larger rally tomorrow:
Tuesday, June 1
5PM – 7:30PM
Israeli Consulate (42nd and Second Ave)
Starting a math blog (notes from Kate and Sam and Jason and ???)
Fine discussion started by Kate, picked up by Sam, continued by Kate, pointed to by Jason…
Kate wants you to know how to start a math blog (Sam has different advice), and she also wants you not to focus (too much?) on the numbers… (Jason has a different take).
And with all that good advice out there, here I am stuck with a half-math blog, pleasing no one but myself, and that only on the good days…
For the record, my own half-baked advice is to carve a niche (I tried to carve several, not a great idea) and to stay in it. Well, going outside is fine, but come back to it. And to write regularly (once a week, if that’s what you do, you should do regularly. once a month, if that’s what you do…..) And to pick a name of at least 6 characters with a mix of letters and numbers. :)
Summer’s close; Vacation planning underway
The long weekend –
and happy long weekend to all of you –
made me think about summer. And I turned and nailed down in one day a big chunk of plans: Vancouver, Seattle, wild Utah.
Still trying to decide (if it’s not already too late) whether to go volunteer for the AFT in the south again. Last year was East Texas, year before that was New Orleans.
Last year’s fantasy non-trip? That will have to wait for another year.
PSC wins again against NY State Furloughs
The Professional Staff Congress, AFT Local 2334, represents professors, instructors, adjuncts, lab techs, HEOs and a host of other professional titles at the City University of New York’s many campuses. Barbara Bowen is president.
Earlier this month the PSC (and three other unions) won a temporary restraining order against the furloughs – a forced pay cut – proposed by Governor Paterson. Bowen’s letter to members follows:
Dear Colleagues and Members,
I am delighted to announce that the US District Court has ruled again in the PSC’s favor, blocking the State from imposing furloughs on us while the underlying lawsuit against the furlough plan moves forward. The ruling means that the State cannot currently impose mandatory pay cuts—furloughs—on CUNY faculty and staff.
The PSC’s press release, which appears below, summarizes our victory, shared with the four other unions that also filed suit. We will provide a link to the text of Judge Kahn’s decision, handed down earlier today, as soon as it becomes available.
Thank you, PSC members who showed your support for the union’s legal fight. What protected us against the furlough plan was our contract—won through our collective strength as a union. Three other PSC members joined me as plaintiffs in the case, and they deserve special thanks: Frank Kirkland of Hunter College, Robert Cermele of New York City College of Technology, and Robert S. Nelson of the Graduate Center. My thanks, too, to the PSC’s legal staff and the attorneys at our state affiliate, NYSUT, who argued the case in Albany on Wednesday.
Enjoy the holiday weekend—without having to worry about the specter of a 20 percent cut in pay.
Barbara Bowen
President, PSC
— — — — — —
Previous coverage on this blog:
I’m sorry, I can’t evaluate this
Real dialogue from yesterday, approximately correct wording:
JD: I’m sorry, I can’t evaluate this résumé. You’ll need to get X to look at it.
Principal: Why?
JD: It’s TFA. I’m opposed to bringing in temporary teachers. I think it destabilizes the schools to have 2-year teachers. It’s a disservice to our colleagues. I’m out there publicly saying we shouldn’t be hiring TFA. I can’t fairly look at a TFA résumé.
Principal: Thank you for your honesty.
Unwrapping NYSED Regression – looking at a lesson
I discussed earlier a planned neat regression lesson. (Read about it here). Tuesday I ran it, and the results are worth sharing.
I asked kids to pair up with someone they don’t normally work with. I distributed conversion charts for a mix of science and math exams from the last 2 years: Algebra, Geometry, B, Living Environment, Chemistry, and Physics. I asked each pair to graph scaled score vs raw score.
It was interesting. The kids plotted the points ok, but they worked far more slowly than I would have expected. I suspect that they rarely create graphs by hand. No one actually needed help with appropriate scale, only one pair in either class mixed up the independent and dependent axes, but they were fairly slow.
As they finished plotting, I took away their charts. (asking them first to note (0,0), (p,65), (m,85) and (t,100)). And we discussed the shapes of their graphs. I informed them that a regression had been performed to create the charts. Linear regression was quickly eliminated. But after that, they were stuck a bit. I asked what other sort of regression would not make sense. In both classes, exponential immediately was dismissed. Kids focused on quadratic, cubic, or power regression.
I should note, the actual curves are interesting. They are cubics. (And regression would actually be silly, since they can just fit the curves exactly to the four points.) But the inflection point is quite visible on those with low cut scores – algebra, living environment – and not at all on those with higher cuts – B, physics. I think Chemistry does not have a visible point, but Geometry does – towards the right of the scale.
Kids chose regressions to try out – their choices were quadratic, cubic, or power (which of course failed). In each class at least one pair modified the (0,0) off the origin and proceeded to test the power regression… but cubic and quadratic drew the most interest. I asked them to visually inspect the results. It was actually an interesting point – I suggested that they set the window to match their plots – only a few considered that on their own.
After each pair had a graph that looked reasonably like their original plot, I asked them to newly create a conversion table (set ∂ Table at 1, start at 0, round to the nearest whole number). And it was neat. Their numbers either exactly matched the original, or were pretty close.
Defects
- Most cubic regressions were dead on, but in several cases kids had rounded coefficients enough to throw single points off by 1 credit.
- Most quadratic regressions were close, but no cigar. However, for B and Physics, many of the points were dead on, and the others were close. It was not obvious that the choice was not the right one.
Discussion after was on the flat parts of the graph… where adding a point to a 64 leaves you with 64… or where adding 9 points to an 80 brings you to 84… And on the arbitrary nature of the conversions aside from 65 and 85 and 100. Later that day kids came by to talk more about the conversion process, and a couple wanted to know if there was a good way to object.
(if you are interested in objecting, you should know that the guy in charge is named John Svendsen and his e-mail is jsvendse@mail.nysed.gov – note the missing ‘n’)
By the way, the State refuses, so far, to review the content of the new courses until 2012. I don’t know how they handle objections to the arbitrary curve-fitting for the conversion charts.
3 best reasons to refuse Race to the Top
Instead of chasing Race to the Top, we should be refusing it. “We” meaning teachers and our unions. Massively. Everywhere. No one should be slicing and dicing their contract and their protections to “win” — because that way we lose. Think about how long we’ve resisted attempted predation on (fill in the blank). Are we really ready to concede overnight?
So Diane Ravitch has 10 top reasons to refuse RttT. Here, from teacher and teacher-union point of view, are the best 3:
- The money that states win cannot plug budget gaps, but must be applied to meeting the requirements of the Race.
- By raising the stakes for tests even higher, Race to the Top will predictably produce more teaching to bad tests, more narrowing of the curriculum, more cheating, and more gaming the system. If scores rise, it will be the illusion of progress, rather than better education. By ratcheting up the consequences of test scores, education will be corrupted and cheapened. There will be even less time for history, geography, civics, foreign languages, literature, and other important subjects.
- Many public schools will be closed down to comply with the demands of Race to the Top. These schools will be heavily concentrated in poor and minority communities, robbing them of their social capital. This will destabilize communities without any assurance that better schools will be created. Schools that enroll large numbers of low-performing students will be heedlessly closed, even if their staff is doing a good job in the face of difficult challenges.
The $ doesn’t fix any budget gaps. RttT screws with teaching, encouraging more “teaching to the test,” and encouraging more bad tests. And the restructuring guidelines will destabilize poor and minority neighborhoods. But Ravitch said it in Ravitch’s words (see above).
No TV
I own a TV. It works. Sort of.
From time to time I watch. An occasional weeknight show (cops, forensic cops, other cops). An occasional latenight show/rerun. Very rarely an old movie. No cartoons, no tv news (hate tv news), no talking heads (like the other Talking Heads, don’t like these talking heads — the ones I agree with just get me to nod along, and the ones I disagree with just make me angry, and I never feel “engaged” and certainly never amused, and rarely edified), occasional sports (though more rarely, since most of what’s worth watching needs to be paid for)
When they changed the cable signal, I threw away my converter box like they told me too.
I must have missed another announcement. Because sometime this Spring (maybe March???) I turned it on, and instead of a show, I saw a blue screen telling me where to get a new box. And I meant to get that box. I mean to. But now it’s 3 months without tv, and it hasn’t bothered me much.
Until last night.
I’d forgotten about the missing box, and went to turn on Law and Order. The finale. The Rubber Room Episode. Missed it.
Need to figure out how to see it.
NYS Integrated Algebra 2/Trig: neat regression problem
The list of performance indicators (ie, the informal curriculum) for New York State’s new Algebra 2/Trig course is packed. Overpacked.
What should come out? Sequences and series, normal curve, probability, regression, etc. Save those for another course (I’d be happy to put in 6 – 8 weeks of the stats/probability related stuff into precalc. A real unit, you know? And that’s the only place sequences and series belong — leading straight towards limits).
But for now, I don’t get my say. If I were taking the test, I might stubbornly get everything else right, and refuse to answer the questions I didn’t think belonged. Really? Yup. That’s the sort of thing I did as a student. But I’m teaching this stuff.
So the neat regression problem? It’s detective work. Take an old Regents Exam (I’m using the August 09 Math B and August 09 Integrated Algebra). Print out the score conversion chart(s). And reveal the Great Truth: NYS Education Department sets 2 scores, “pass” and “mastery,” and lets the calculator supply the rest. And that’s a starting point many of us can use.
Task 0(a): Look at the conversion chart. Identify the four fixed points – (0,0), (p,65), (m,85), and (t,100).
Task 0(b): Plot the data. They should see it’s not linear. I’ll want them to notice for Math B that it takes 11 points to get from 82 to 90. If you used the August 09 Integrated Algebra, you might want them to notice that it takes 14 points to move from an 80 to an 85.
Task 1: Hypothesize which sort of regression they used. This is hard. I’m skipping this with my kids. If they did it they’d see it is not linear. If they see Integrated Algebra, prepare for an elementary discussion of concavity and that ugly inflection point. But, and here’s the neat thing, but it is guessably a cubic regression. 
If they use Math B, very tough. They may see that it is concave down (not in those terms) and wonder if it is a square root or some fractional power.
Task 2: Someone suggests (the kids if you do Task 1 and are fortunate, otherwise the someone will be you) that the State performed a cubic regression. Attempt to recreate what they did, and recreate the conversion chart. Put away the State’s chart. Find a, b, c, and d (well, d=0) for 
Task 3: Get ready for a real discussion of fairness vs unfairness, and of what other methods they could use to create the conversion charts. Maybe the kids want to experiment? (Three line segments is easy).
By the way, it’s nice to know that four points gives four equations with four unknowns, and that we can actually fit the cubic exactly. In my case, my kids have fit quadratics to three points, so I’ll want to discuss the extension.
Also, to create the graph (that I hope appears correctly) I used (0,0), (30,65), (68,85), and (87,100) for August 2009 Integrated Algebra, I used Google to calculate 
And I’ll let you know, maybe, how my kiddies react to the problem.
Math Teachers at Play 26 @ Math Hombre
The latest Math Teachers @ Play is up at Math Hombre. MTaP is a blog carnival devoted to school mathematics, but it is really more. It joins high school and elementary and even younger kid math, and adds in puzzles and games and literature and science. There’s even a bit of advanced stuff.
And Math Hombre has done a great job with #26, starting with the pun in the second paragraph (how are you with numerical history puns?) It helps that the blog looks good, you know what you’re clicking (nice explanations), and there are light facts about 26 littered throughout.
Integrated Algebra II/Trig – too much stuff
When New York State moved from Course I, Course II and Course III, already a little weird, to Math A and Math B, they recut the courses and shuffled material. And then they slightly unshuffled when they returned to Integrated Algebra, Integrated Geometry, and Integrated Algebra 2/Trig.
Except there’s as much false as true about that statement. They didn’t really unscramble the courses – they just gave them unscrambled-sounding names. They didn’t return to Algebra, Geometry, and Trig. Internally they insisted that these were just new labels on A and B, divided into 3 instead of 2. And, and this is the worst part, they removed very little, but actually added topics.
So, teachers saw the new names, and smiled. Then we saw that Integrated Algebra was about half algebra, and required far less than 50% to pass. That was annoying. Then we saw that Integrated Geometry was a little hard, but mostly focused on geometry.
And this year we’re teaching Algebra II/Trig for the first time, and we’re racing through Performance Indicator (PI) after Performance Indicator, and teachers are realizing, there’s just way too much stuff, and way too little time for extras and the sort of activities and practice kids need to absorb the stuff. In some places teachers are realizing that they will not get through all their topics. Series and sequences are new. Everyone is wondering how deep the statistics and regression will go.
There is an amazing discussion of this on the Association of Mathematics Teachers of New York State (AMTNYS) high school listserve. Go read what they are saying. Keep clicking the arrows to read the responses.
Analyzing the UFT Election – the retiree vote
(This is the second of a multi-part series analyzing the vote in the UFT elections earlier this Spring.
Intro – Retirees – more to come)
The simplest part of the UFT vote to analyze are the retirees.
- Retirees tend to be steady. This is partially confirmed by slate voting – it was higher among retirees than among any group of active voters.
- Retirees have their numbers decreased by those who in the last three years have passed on or become incapacitated.
- Retirees have their numbers increased by those who have retired in the last three years.
I’ll turn these into a few simple assumptions.
- Retirees rarely change the caucus they support
- If a retiree votes in this election, it means they voted in the last election, and for the same caucus. A retiree who didn’t vote continues not to vote.
- About 5-10% of retirees who voted last time were no longer here or are unable to vote this time. Those retirees were distributed amongst the caucuses in the same proportion as the 2007 retiree vote was distributed across the caucuses.
- The new retirees who voted can be calculated by looking at the difference between each caucus’ 2007 and 2010 total, after adjusting for the 5-10%. The new retirees who voted were voting the same way they voted as active members back in 2007.
Some of these are gross oversimplifications, but none should be wildly off, and it is possible now to examine the numbers and read them.
I read the relatively higher numbers of retirees voting slate as an indication of steadiness in the numbers.
| Non Slate Voting | Percents | ||||
| 2004 | 2007 | 2010 | |||
| ES | 5% | 8% | 8% | ||
| IS/JHS | 5% | 7% | 8% | ||
| HS | 7% | 7% | 9% | ||
| Functional | 8% | 12% | 13% | ||
| Retired | 7% | 4% | 3% | ||
| Non Slate Voting | One out of every… | ||||
| 2004 | 2007 | 2010 | |||
| ES | 20 | 12 | 12 | ||
| IS/JHS | 19 | 14 | 13 | ||
| HS | 14 | 13 | 11 | ||
| Functional | 13 | 8 | 8 | ||
| Retired | 15 | 25 | 32 | ||
The number voting also remains fairly steady:
| Mailed | Returned | % voting | |||
| Retired | 2004 | 45,082 | 21,998 | 48.8% | |
| 2007 | 50,208 | 22,427 | 44.7% | ||
| 2010 | 53,560 | 24,795 | 46.3% |
The totals and percents do not reveal many changes, except for a small uptick for New Action in this election.
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| w/o Non-slate | Total Votes | Total | ||||
| Unity | NAC | ICE/TJC | Slate | |||
| Retired | 2004 | 18,067 | 1,558 | 872 | 20,497 | |
| 2007 | 18,864 | 1,616 | 1,061 | 21,541 | ||
| 2010 | 20,744 | 2,234 | 1,037 | 24,015 | ||
| Percents | ||||||
| Unity | NAC | ICE/TJC | ||||
| Retired | 2004 | 88.1% | 7.6% | 4.3% | ||
| 2007 | 87.6% | 7.5% | 4.9% | |||
| 2010 | 86.4% | 9.3% | 4.3% | |||
| With Non-slate | Total Votes | |||||
| Unity | NAC | ICE/TJC | Non-slate | |||
| Retired | 2004 | 18,067 | 1,558 | 872 | 1,501 | |
| 2007 | 18,864 | 1,616 | 1,061 | 886 | ||
| 2010 | 20,744 | 2,234 | 1,037 | 780 | ||
| Percents | ||||||
| Unity | NAC | ICE/TJC | Non-slate | |||
| Retired | 2004 | 82.1% | 7.1% | 4.0% | 6.8% | |
| 2007 | 84.1% | 7.2% | 4.7% | 4.0% | ||
| 2010 | 83.7% | 9.0% | 4.2% | 3.1% | ||
But trying to uncover how the new retirees voted, it appears that New Action retired a greater proportion than the other caucuses.
I am assuming that about one in fifteen retirees who voted in 2007 did not do so in 2010. That’s just a guess. And I assume that they are distributed proportionately to the total retiree vote amongst the caucuses. Also just a guess. And then I look at the difference between the remaining votes and the 2010 vote to create a guess to how many new retirees voted for each caucus.
(slate only)
| Unity | NAC | ICE/TJC | Total | |||
| 2007 Vote | 18,864 | 1,616 | 1,061 | 21,541 | ||
| Decrease (guess) | 1415 | 121 | 80 | 1,616 | ||
| Remaining (guess) | 17,449 | 1,495 | 981 | 19,925 | ||
| 2010 Vote | 20,744 | 2,234 | 1,037 | 24,015 | ||
| New Retirees | 3,295 | 739 | 56 | 4,090 | ||
| Percent of new | 80.6% | 18.1% | 1.4% | |||
Seeing that New Action had a jump is different from understanding how or why.
One possibility is that I’ve captured a whole lot of ICE/TJC voters switching to New Action. But there is a high proportion of slate voting amongst retirees, which would indicate less flexibility in voting patterns.
Another possibility is that between 2007 and 2010 there was a demographic blip. Many of those who retired would have been first active at the height of New Action’s strength, when Michael Shulman was elected high school vice president, and when New Action had great strength in the high school and middle school divisions.
A third possibility is that more ICE/TJC retirees stopped voting than retirees from the other caucuses. But there is no particular reason to suggest that this is the case.
Most likely, New Action’s vote among retirees benefited primarily by a disproportionate number of new retirees being New Action supporters, and secondarily by a small number of retirees who voted ICE/TJC in 2007 switching to New Action in 2010.
I’ll use these numbers and assumptions later, when I analyze the vote in the four active member divisions.
Trig mnemonics
ASTC? No, no need.
But Soh Cah Toa is useful.
Just memorize the word?
Or some old hippie caught another hippie tripping on apples.
(Those must be some wiii-iiild apples)
But, new for me:
| SOME | CRAZY | TEACHER |
| oh hell, | another hour | of algebra |
What do you think? I got it from a college student.
May 16 – some scenes from the day
Herald Square is eerily quiet at 10:30 on Sunday evening. The beach chairs almost looked appropriate. People were holding conversations. Real conversations as they walked. Without shouting. And a cab didn’t see the light turn green. The limo behind him did. So he leaned on the horn stuck his head out the window and said “let’s go.”
Walking home in the late afternoon, on a street alongside a park, I heard loud music thumping. But it wasn’t new stuff, it was latin jazz, a loud but slightly muted bass line. My feet slipped into time as my eyes scanned for the car with the sound system turned up. Saw the guy at the front of an SUV, but the SUV wasn’t moving. And the guy, guys actually, were kind of middle-aged. Something was off? Yup. Another few steps and I saw where the sound was really coming from: a four piece band on the sidewalk, including a pair of conga drums in Puerto Rican, or were they Cuban? colors.
There’s usually something boring and unoriginal about tattoos. But today on the train, I kept glancing over at the salt shaker a young woman had on her bicep.
I was going to meet some students at the college today. First, 10AM, the library was closed. And no students were there. One had canceled. I sat and looked over grades. It was quiet, except for the mocking bird in the top of the tree near me. He was calling sparrow calls, and black birds, and a bunch of others. I think he did the variable volume car alarm. Chatterbox. Show off. I calculated averages. Two Canada Geese approached. I backed them away. I checked my notes, and found phone numbers for the no shows, and called, and confirmed that no one was coming. I noticed a red tail, swooping slowly close to me, and swinging past the Old Gym. Right, there were no squirrels clicking, none on the ground… the hide when hawks are near… I walked towards the sunken lawn. Quiet and peaceful. Another hawk, this one landed on the corner of the roof of the Concert Hall. A little motion? Yup. Another mocking bird was next to the hawk, decided he was too close, and hopped a bit further. I looked back at the lawn. The fake dogs (to scare the geese) had been removed. A mourning dove cooed behind me. Nope, it was the mocking bird, still next to the hawk. A linden tree looked heavy with seed strips. I saw smaller birds by the old gym, and then I heard a shriek and sensed motion and turned back to see… the hawk sitting still… it was the mockingbird that had tricked me. I laughed at the ridiculous bird, then at myself.
I met an ex-blogger downtown. She was much as I’d imagined. And this was a good thing. Also, she helped me plan a lesson for today, and forced me to start thinking about summer plans… And crafted a secret message that I will bring back for a student.
Earlier in the day I had been mentally planning the same lesson. “Mr. 2718!” I heard and turned. And say hi and half-waved to the student. I could have added “I was just thinking of how to bore you tomorrow.” (I hate teaching regression)
Puzzle: Naming the fifth card
I have a trick that I learned from my mother years ago. It involves two partners. One starts, while the other is absent, by laying out a group of cards, and having a volunteer pick one. The partner arrives, and the first asks about each card in turn “is this the correct card?” and the partner stops him at the correct one. Sure fire. Silly. I’d have to show you a picture.
I have another one I learned about 10 years ago from my graduate advisor. It involves partners again. In this case, one asks a volunteer to draw 5 cards, and returns one card to the volunteer to conceal. He then holds up the remaining four cards. From a distance the second volunteer identifies the missing card.
I call it Matthews’ trick because one day I saw Matthews’ at a conference holding up four cards at a distance, and guessed what he was doing and shouted out the card – and it was the same trick, I was right. Now when we meet at conferences we pretend not to know each other, and play the trick.
Yes, we signal. But we signal by arranging the cards. How?
(I teased and then taught a bunch of freshmen on the trip to DC this past Thursday and Friday. They were good. And good sports.)
A new field trip
New for me.
For years I taught freshmen, and went on our school’s big freshman trip. Last year I could not (bad timing). And this year I don’t teach freshmen.
So I volunteered that if they were short a chaperone, that I could be their last resort. You see my mistake, right? And if it is so obvious, why didn’t I see it at the time? Anyway, I went. At least my regents classes don’t meet Thursday, so I only lost one day…
Our freshmen used to go to Boston (and Lowell). Now they go to DC (and …) New for me.
Places: Fort McHenry with a scavenger hunt. The Newseum in DC. Washington Monument photo-op. Jefferson Memorial scamper. Mill around the White House gate way after dark. Next morning: Mount Vernon. Baltimore Inner Harbor for lunch.
Itinerary: There was a pretty good academic focus, while giving the kids plenty of time to have fun. Good choices, IMHO. Timing was tight in places, but within reason. Had we shifted the time elsewhere, it would have been tight somewhere else. And how can I complain when we got home a few minutes ahead of schedule?
Details: I liked Fort McHenry. The Newseum? I would go back on my own. The old newsclips were fun. The old newspapers, too. Would you rather watch SNL, 9/11, or Edward R Murrow? Really, why should you have to choose? And Mount Vernon was pretty, and the museum had lots of stuff. Unfortunately for me, the commentary was more in praise of Washington than in examination of him. I don’t know that I should have expected anything else, but I was hoping. I would have liked to have a walk some point along the way. That’s a complaint. But a very minor one in the face of a very pleasant and successful trip.
Kids: strange being on a trip with kids who I don’t know. But actually, even not teaching them, I’d managed to meet maybe 40% before the trip. And then it was relatively easy because they were relatively well-behaved. There was no incident to cast a shadow over the trip. My group got along fairly well with me, and stayed with me even when I offered to send them off on their own (mostly).
Math: I teased them with 3, 3, 8, 8. One got close, but I eventually shared the solution a few miles from home. I taught them a divisibility rule for 7. I taught them some bad math humor. And lied to them about factors, which led to a bunch of kids getting involved in counting factors and making predictions. And I taught them Matthews’ card trick* (which I did not learn from Matthews) which involves counting permutations. We practiced impressing other teachers and kids.
Summary: Kids were nice. Saw the Newseum, Fort McHenry, and Mount Vernon for the first time. I lost one day of trig. But I got to play fun math with some kids, who now may even look forward (a bit) to my classes. Good trip.
Bad bad hotel
This is about Boston. Got a notice in my e-mail:
On August 31st the three Boston area Hyatt hotels fired their entire housekeeping staffs and replaced them with temp workers doing more work for almost half the pay
and then…
Will we let Hyatt off the hook?
NO WAY!
Picket at the Hyatt Cambridge (535 Memorial Dr)
Sunday May 16th from 11:30-1
For more information call Jaimie McNeil at Local 26 617-832-6650
But this’s also about San Francisco. The Boston Jobs with Justice notice (above) linked a protest against a hotel in San Francisco, calling for a boycott, for not providing health care etc to its workers. Video is well-worth watching:
JD2718 