Principal’s Weekly (NYC Dept of Ed)
I didn’t know that they were available on-line. Now I do.
I think someone in each school (chapter leader, committee member, interested teacher/secretary/counselor) should be regularly taking a peek.
The DoE hid them from the world. Big surprise? No. Disappointed? Yup.
NYC DoE moves to restrict political expression
I received this in today’s e-mail:
I, defacto, feel less constrained as a math teacher (who else can impart perfect universal truths to their charges) than I would as a social studies teacher. I think that, unless a member has a problem, that I will only really learn where these limits are if I happen to cross them.
But that’s speaking for me. Speaking for teachers, I think the attempt to curtail legitimate speech is outrageous, and unsurprisingly. Cream rises to the top. Slime oozes into everything.
Parking and the NYC Dept of Education
When the parking stuff was coming to a boil I wasn’t blogging. But it’s still fresh, still worth commenting.
NYC teachers last year could apply for and receive little parking ‘placards,’ cards that sat in our windshield, allowing us to park in designated DoE parking spots. There were many more placards distributed than actual spaces.
This year Bloomberg attacked permits for loads of agencies, and rolled back designated spots. The City and the UFT reached an agreement whereby the number of spaces was untouched, but the number of permits was reduced to match the number of spaces. (other agencies actually lost spots)
Problem I: tens of thousands of teachers had placards, and will no longer. Why does it matter? If there were no spots, why whould anyone care? In some schools the spots were first come, first serve. In others, the extra placards would be sort of a ‘bonus’ if someone was sick, or out. In other cases the placard came into play when the teacher had to attend an afternoon meeting (or athletic event, or training) at another school. Arrive after 3, and the early birds were already on the way home, space now available.
I used my card about 5 times a year, in exactly those circumstances. Multiply that by 10,000 teachers. And my 5 times is probably a low number. A small benefit, cost the city nothing, and thousands of us had it, and lost it.
Problem II: the agreement let the chapter leader and the principal allocate the placards. We know better than that. Or we should. Many of our chapters are too weak to stand up against principals. We needed a citywide agreement that laid down an implementation plan, and perhaps allowed schools to modify it. I happened to be out this weekend with about ten teachers from a bunch of different boroughs, different grade levels, this weekend. Not one of them was in a school where the agreement was implemented. The closest I heard was principals taking cards for themselves, their APs, their F-status cronies, and then letting the chapter dole out the remainder.
So watch this picture: 7:30, teachers circling blocks, students lining up for a 7:45 class, teachers looking for spots, while empty spaces wait for a part-timer or an AP to fill at 9 AM. Beautiful.
Problem III: I sense far too little awareness of Problems I and II. Randi told the exec board two weeks ago that we won our maximum position. The UFT descriptions of the changes make it sound like a victory. Ten thousand teachers lost something, and I am not sure that downtown understands why we are upset. That’s a problem.
The part of the deal that gives chapters a say could be made much better by working on strengthening our chapters, strengthening our union from the bottom up. I don’t hear objections to doing this sort of work, but I see little action….
Finally, the placards themselves. They used to cost the city nothing, but they were an (albeit small) but symbolically important economic benefit to many of us. We should, though we won’t, reopen this. We should make sure that no school is completely shut out (so that there are at least cards for teachers or even admins when they need to attend meetings elsewhere, where public transport is not practical.
And that’s the last bit. I am a big fan of public transport. I use it, where it is practical. The tyrrany of the upper east side rich poking at middle class schlubs who need to drive is infuriating. Meeting in Manhattan? Of course I jump on the train. Meeting on the other side of the Bronx? What, are you kidding?
Audio Slideshow: the art of mathematics
Slide show with voice over about dynamical systems. Too short, not enough detail, but focuses the eye on some aspects that may be new. From the BBC.
Tough week
First full week of classes, and programming restarted… So a self-imposed break from blogging seemed smart. I’ll be catching up with new and exciting posts, and with replies to some of the comments you have left. Thanks for your patience!
Pages in a storm
I am sitting home, looking at schedules, and reading on-line. What exactly? Well, since Hanna’s got me in, Hanna’s where we start:
- The National Hurricane Center (in my blog roll) updates the progress of Hanna, and Ike, and the remnants of Josephine every few hours. I like the Forecast Discussions (they seem strange, but you get used to them) and the Wind Speed projections (tables with numbers, my sort of stuff), but the animated graphics archives (I like the 5-day projections) are really cool.
- Breaking the rules. An upstate NY math teacher – f(t) – uses a cell phone in class? Nope. She makes her kids use theirs. Pretty cool, though I don’t think I have the guts to try it myself.
- Got stuff out of the garden before Hanna soaked it? Pissed Off Teacher did. Just a pretty picture.
- What’s the chance that Palin will be president? Well, if McCain loses, zero (this time). But if McCain wins… over at God Plays Dice Isabel Michael reports on the calculated odds.
- My local newspaper has a blog. Ok, it’ll get better.
- Gotham Schools has a story on something else that has gone wrong with the opening of the New York City school year: overloaded registration centers.
- And they also cover something near and dear: math and olives. It would be easy to be all “isn’t this wonderful” but Kelly is right to ask some hard questions about math education in Morocco.
Carnival of Mathematics #40
CoM XL… Anyone know where it is?
Teacher test score tracking screws up school opening in NYC
High School Scheduling System Stalled
As schools scramble to balance class sizes and give schedules to new students, the New York City Department of Education’s computer scheduling system sputtered and stalled due to secret modifications.
Counselors, Schedulers, left to admit new students, fix schedules, balance classes in the dark
HSST, the high school scheduling software used by NY City high schools, stopped producing reports Wednesday AM. Class lists, room use reports, old report cards, no, no, no. Only student schedules and transcripts continued to be available (on “the client”) until later that same day, when that system failed as well.
DoE secret teacher tracking project to blame
The explanation, unusually heavy load, is itself a load (of?) More likely: the DoE modified HSST to push linking teachers to test scores, and the modifications screwed everything up.
Status updates (below fold) tell story
HSST? A little background
HSST, or High School Scheduling T (don’t know what that T stands for) is the collection of web-based programs that New York City high schools use for scheduling.
HSST holds schedules for the schools and individual students, grades (current and previous) for students, transcripts, and so on. For the Bloomberg DoE, HSST is the key program they need to for tracking teachers by their students test scores. This is where the data they intend to abuse is stored.
Student biographical information, entered in ATS (that one I know, it stands for Automate the Schools! and is more user unfriendly than any current piece of software I have encountered) can be accessed in HSST. This includes name, race, address, phone, free lunch status, etc. This information cannot be modified in HSST, however.
HSST was previewed in 2002-03, and forced on mostly unwilling high schools in 2004-05. It is a web-based program, replacing the mainframe-based UAPC (University Application Processing Center). Did they want to save money? Take more direct control? Do things better? Idk.
But HSST is a few different badly cobbled together pieces of software. It had awful problems the first few years. The outcry from high schools across the city was huge, and the articles made the papers.
They claimed it was growing pains. But DIIT (Information Technology) did not have an adequate number of servers to keep it running during peak loads (September, January, June), and even as they occasionally added servers, they also introduced “improvements” which exacerbated the data exchange that took place. In other words, they always raised demand more than they expanded capacity.
Prior to HSST, the Board of Education paid CUNY to use UAPC, which was state of the art (c. mid 1970s). All lines were 80 or 132 characters long, a reminder of the punchcards that were originally used with these computers. “Jobs” were printed in Brooklyn, and messengered to schools the next day.
Programmers, trained on IBM 360/370, with OS, with MVS, and tempered by years of JCL errors, felt at home with UAPC. Newer programmers had more trouble, but borough-wide programmer meetings brought them in contact with senior mentors who were happy to have their expertise tapped.
In large schools, teachers would serve as assistant programmers and learn the ropes, sometimes for years, before taking charge. The proliferation of small schools and 6-12 schools meant a new generation of untrained programmers. They would have been equally lost with HSST and UAPC. Rapid turnover in poorly run small schools exacerbates the problems.
Watch the Palin video
right here, but if it’s too long, at least jump to 3:38
“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right also for this country; that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God”
Another Palin speech
Constructing a regular octagon
Two questions for you:
The first is more mundane, and is about compass and straight edge construction:
A. Quickest, cleanest way to construct a regular octagon.
B. Given a side, quickest, cleanest way to raise a regular octagon on it.
The second:
Where would you cut a unit square to create a regular octagon? (how far from the corner is your first cut?)
Advice to new teachers: a place to hide
Last evening I spoke with my friend, a brand new teaching fellow. He assured me that Sunday’s warning was well-taken: he managed to get his shoes off first, but collapsed asleep before 4.
Don’t sit with the AP
He told me that between classes, it was convenient to hang out in the AP’s office, plenty of space, the AP encourages teachers to take advantage of it, etc, etc. He said that about half the teachers sit there, the other half go somewhere less convenient.
Same thing happened to me when I was a new teacher. I passed on, modified by time, the advice an older relative, retired Brooklyn teacher and chapter leader gave me a dozen years ago:
Don’t sit with the AP. It may seem easy. It may be convenient. He may be friendly. He may invite you. He may chat with you and offer tips about your teaching. He may praise you. He may take you into his confidence.
But he is your supervisor.
- If things go badly later on (and we hope they don’t), but sometimes things go badly for first-year teachers, it’s a hard job, then everything you’ve said, everything you’ve shared – they are already in his possession.
- You have colleagues who do not know you yet, who do not trust you yet. What will they think, what sort of relationship will you develop if they see you sitting in the AP’s office every day?
- Why do you think all those other teachers walk further to sit somewhere else?
Sitting with other teachers is preferable. But starting out, the best thing is having a place to hide. A place where you can get work done, with no one bothering you. A place (maybe?) close your eyes for a few moments. A place where you can hang your head and feel overwhelmed without worrying about who is watching. A place, occasionally, to cry. A place to regain composure.
Sounds strange. As a new teacher (double for a fellow, ten times for a TfA) you have been told that you will save the system. That you will run rings around old, worn-out, dud teachers. They lied. As a new teacher you will be mediocre, at best. Growth will come. But for now, consider surviving to be a major feat. Concentrate on getting yourself through the day, the week, the year. The good teaching, that comes with time (among other things).
Good luck to all NYC teachers
and other staff. And hope this is a good start to a good year.
As trying as the two days in August may have been, tomorrow is the kids. For many of us, that’s the best part.
If you are brand new, brace yourself. You thought summer training was hard? Teaching is exhausting. Try to remember, when you get home, to take your shoes off. It’s kind of gross to wake up at 8PM with your shoes on. (from experience).
This summer I gave out lots of good new teacher tips and advice (well, I thought it was good, and lots of appreciative comments came back). I’ll put bits and pieces in this blog over the next week or two.
Police raid journalists’ house before RNC
I saw this in the news, and saw a clip from across the street. But Fred Klonsky posted (and I am reposting) a very clear video, that includes footage inside and outside the house, both before and after the raid.
Number Puzzle: Who could I be?
We have six statements about a number, and we know that exactly 1 is false.
- I am greater than 50
- I am a multiple of 7
- I am a perfect square
- I am a 3-digit number
- I am less than 500
- I am a multiple of 17
Are there any numbers that fit? How many? And if they exist, what are they?
Unrelated, interesting note: Nice factoring techniques for solving problems such as
are presented at the Ultimate Quant Marathon Blog for IIM Cat (whatever that means), a brand new blog. I think it’s called Quantologic for short.
When we undo the 2005 contract…
…we should start with the two days in August.
They are useless, a waste of time, pull us in 5 days earlier (break goes from 68 to 63 days, except for summer school from 30 to 25).
In New York City, teachers already work until June 26, later than most districts, and later than any other that I know of. But until 2005, at least we had Labor Day.
The 2005 NYC teachers contract was a disaster. Negotiated away rights and time in return for cash. Bit by bit we are getting a grip on how much damage was done.
We made progress recently on not being able to grieve letters in files. If a letter is written to enforce or discipline for something that violates the contract, the underlying violation may be grieved, and the letter removed (happened on an attendance issue). That’s a little back. Unfortunately, the biggest loss was the threat of the grievance, which stopped many letters from ever being written.
Open Market transfers are horrible. Many positions are filled privately, then posted. I don’t know how many people have been unjustly suspended without pay, but we know they exist. The longer day.
And the longer year. Pointless. Mean. Insulting. Useless.
Breaks the Labor Day weekend away from the rest of the Summer. It wasn’t the biggest give back in 2005, but it is symbolically one of the ugliest. And it affects every single teacher. We should put rolling these days back right at the top of our list of demands for next year, and not back away from it.
And for those who whine “JD, when will you stop fighting 2005? It is past.” I answer “I will keep fighting it until the damage is undone.”
NYC schools and classroom setup
Article 6C of the UFT contract with the Board of Education (it still says ‘Board’) establishes the school year:
All teachers shall report to their schools to begin work on the Thursday preceding Labor Day for a professional day, and will also have a professional day on the Friday preceding Labor Day… Part of the time on the days before Labor Day will be allotted to classroom preparation…
So, do you have classroom set-up time? How much? Put it in the comments.
I saw my school’s agenda yesterday… I know we have about half the time… I’ll put the exact number in the comments, too.
What should you do if they give you no time? What if they give you very little time?
- 1. speak with the chapter leader
- 2. if there is no chapter leader, or the chapter leader does not respond, contact your borough office.
- You might let me know, too (in comments is ok, but privately is better – and I’ll try to help make sure your issue gets directed properly)
Parking: Spaces saved, Permits lost?
I got an e-mail today describing a change in how parking permits will be given to teachers.
Read this:
Dear JONATHAN,
…. The deal that the union and the city reached yesterday ensures that all on-street and off-street parking spots for schools have been preserved and presents an opportunity for an increase in the number of spots.
Teacher parking has always been a problem in New York City. There has never been enough. In the past, the Department of Education has sought to address this problem by increasing the number of permits without increasing the number of actual spots. This has created problems for neighborhoods and educators. Although I would rather the city not change the process right now, the agreement the UFT reached with the city continues the number of available spots and more closely aligns the number of placards with the number of spots. This brings the decision on who gets the placards to the school level where it belongs…
[OK – that part that I bolded, I think that’s the loss – jd]
Under the agreement, the number of permits available to a school will be limited to the number of available spaces currently designated for parking by DOE personnel. The principal and chapter leader in each school will decide the distribution of these on-street and off-street placards, whether through assignment to individual people, pooling of placards for use each day (which could be on a first-come, first-serve basis), or some combination of those two methods. …
Now, all sorts of technical issues come to mind. But leave them aside for now. Did thousands of us just lose our parking permits?
AFT Union Summer – New Orleans photos
I didn’t know what to do this summer.
I got caught doing lots of work for my school. So I thought about applying to the AFT’s Union Summer program. I figured that I wouldn’t have to plan anything, the work is work I wanted to do, and wherever I was, there would be some relaxing time as well. The other options involved more planning… so I applied. And was accepted. My surprise was ending up in New Orleans, but that was a good surprise.
While there the ten of us (from NY, PA, IL, and CA) did three kinds of work.
- We went door to door with United Teachers of New Orleans (UTNO) organizers, talking to (and in some cases signing up) charter school teachers.
- We helped publicize, prepare for, set up, work at, and clean up a big back to school fair (there was food, entertainment, immunizations, an insectarium, school supplies including book bags, and books, all free).
- And we helped clean up, paint, and set up rooms in several New Orleans schools.
We also tooled around New Orleans, taking in some sights, visiting the 9th ward, enjoying good food and entertainment.
Photos below the fold —> Read more…
New Orleans wildlife
Not really. Just some photos I took while down there.
The first is of red ants at a dragonfly feast. (click any photo to open larger, clearer version – or the entire Picassa Album)
The Sunday we were there some of us drove to a plantation west of New Orleans by an hour or so. As we were walking the grounds we heard a loud flutter – an owl. I took a bunch of photos, slowly approaching. The first, you can see his face. then I bunch more. Finally, I got too close. The second was the last I took… he flew off. Plus his head is turned.
Last photo is of some unfortunate New Orleans shrimp… Read more…
The formerly anonymous blogger known as Eduwonkette
I won’t tell, but she does.
Do kids get most units?
I don’t think so. I don’t think they have a very good sense of distance, of rate, of volume, of area, as expressed in most standard units (traditional or metric).
Can we do anything about this in math class? Does it matter?
Yes, and yes.
It matters in the real world. There’s a piece of literacy that’s missing if I kid knows 5 miles is far, but can’t get more specific. How much is 2 gallons of soup? Adults don’t get square feet. And move to metric in the US, and lots of people are lost. We encounter the terms daily. We should understand how much, how far, how long, how fast, in terms that make sense.
And it matters in math class. All those annoying word problems, in context, with answers in cubic feet or meters per second. Shouldn’t kiddies know if their answers make sense? What good is the context if they don’t sense the scale?
Teach them to convert
So there’s two pieces here. There are a number of ways to convert. I like what I call factor-label. Example. I want to know how fast 100 meters in 9.69 seconds is in miles per hour. Look at this:
Now, ‘cancel’ the units (it’s not really math, but it works) as if we were canceling common factors in fractions, multiply across, and presto: 23 point something miles per hour (the bad 8:5 conversion limits my significant digits, but no matter. I can’t perceive the difference between 23 and 24 mph. Does 23.2 vs 23.3 really matter to the kids?)
There’s other ways to convert units, but the kids must be armed with some tool.
Teach them human-scale reference units
Miles per hour. Sounds so natural. Rolls off the tongue. But I am fairly confident that most of my students don’t have a good grasp of how fast 2 mph, 10 mph, 20 mph, 50 mph, 100 mph, etc, really are.
good ideas, below the fold — > Read more…
Who knows how multiplication is taught? Not me, not Keith.
This is about an argument about nothing.
A respected math columnist went after teachers for saying that multiplication is repeated addition, but it turns out that he doesn’t know if many teachers do this. I called him on it. And his response came up short.
Background
Yup. One more Devlin post. Synopsis so far for those of you who weren’t watching the whole multiplication vs repeated addition follies.
Keith Devlin, back last Fall, wishes that he could stop teachers from saying multiplication is repeated addition. He elaborates, big time, in “It Ain’t No Repeated Addition” in July. Denise, who teaches math, thinks about it, and asks, then how should we teach multiplication? That’s when the comments get a bit out of hand. Denise posts again. Some other people post. Even I post.
Mostly the posters and commenters were yelling and screaming about whether or not multiplication is repeated addition. In all of this, the question that matters – how should we teach, was pretty much buried.
Question pops up
Fast forward a few days. I am in New Orleans, setting up classrooms. And I stop to skim a variety of elementary and middle school math texts. And I don’t find the error Devlin is chasing. Instead I find books discussing and introducing multiple meanings of mathematics.
Could there be some texts that say Repeated Addition = Multiplication? Sure. But my unscientific sample didn’t find them. Could some teachers ignore the texts and teach Repeated Addition = Multiplication. I know that some do. But I don’t really know if it is very many. So I wondered out loud if Devlin was jousting with a straw man.
Devlin’s rebuttal
His recent column, he’s making one more go of it, attempts to rebut 6 arguments. It is longer because he will “be quoting from some of the leading mathematics education scholars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries…”
But when he comes to my arguments, um, no. He provides next to nothing. There is one British ed journal article that says teaching multiplication as repeated addition is a problem (from ten years ago, directed to British national policy, looks like the research was a small study in London.)
And his coup de grace? Studies (one British, one Canadian) that show adults, when asked to define multiplication, respond with repeated addition.
(To look for yourself, find the heading “The Problem Is WIdespread” about three quarters of the way down)
Now, think for a moment. Of the various models we may use in teaching multiplication, isn’t repeated addition the strongest? Isn’t that exactly what you would expect an adult, 15 or 30 years removed from grade school to recall first? They remembered what we should expect them to remember – but that doesn’t tell us what they were taught.
Could he have cited something else? Yup. If he found state or national standards telling teachers to teach RA = M, but I don’t think they exist. If he had found studies that said, “teachers do this a lot”… If he could show us texts that do the same… maybe they are there. Josh at TextSavvy might know?
Two things went wrong here.
Like the engineer who comes to a school knowing math but not knowing how to teach it, Keith Devlin arrived to a topic (math ed) that he remembers. He was a student. And he probably remembers better than most. But we are talking memories, not current knowledge here.
And second. Something I recognize. Stubbornness. Look how well he writes. Pick any other column. Pick his recent interview. There’s intellect, there’s quality of expression. He hasn’t poorly defended his position because he argues poorly; it’s just stubbornness without facts supporting it.
I’d be interested in recommendations about multiplication should be taught, but as for this topic, I think this will be my last post.
JD2718 