May 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Blogging as a Means of Expression
I just typed a long post on blogging as a means of expression and then I accidentally navigated away from the post and promptly lost the whole thing, so maybe that’s another strike against blogging as a means of expression.
Anyway, this blog was born out of an assignment for a class I am taking at CUNY Grad Center where I am getting a PHD in slow motion. (Brief digression: when I started...
6 tags
Building Blues
The debate has raged on in the blogosphere: is it better to rent? Or to own? I have been a silent observer, but have been involved in my own life.
My parents were renters until 1981, when they plunked down a then-unheard of $200,000 for a house on what was considered “the wrong side of Court Street” in what is today called Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. There was a schoolyard on our block...
2 tags
Bike New York
When I was very little, my parents owned a tiny blue Datsun—I remember that it was almost always in the shop. When I was about four it died for good and after that my father began bicycling everywhere in the city. He was a biker way before it was trendy or cool; it was his main method of transportation. Just living in New York City in the early 1980s was a major logistical challenge;...
2 tags
Educational Diversity
My students and I have just finished reading John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, and Mill had some interesting things to say about education:
A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government… An education established and controlled by...
April 2010
4 posts
3 tags
Schemers and Dreamers
Like most union-dominated workplaces, the New York City Department of Education maintains strict seniority rules. No matter how great or bad you are, if you are a first year teacher your job is in jeopardy. During my first couple of years, I was definitely low man on the totem pole, which meant that at least three times I was in real danger of losing my job. Once, only a last minute sabbatical...
4 tags
On the Spot
The math teacher walked up to my desk in the windowless computer room where I was grabbing a bite to eat while catching up on the British leader’s debate on C-SPAN’s website. “I have a question for you,” he asked. I was excited to explain to him the details of the Westminster system, but instead he asked “do you support the new law that would allow principals to...
4 tags
Removing Rubber Rooms...Really?
Last week, the New York City Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers joined together to make a stunning announcement: New York City’s infamous rubber rooms are finally going to be closed.
Amazing! Astounding! What are the rubber rooms again? If you haven’t read this article by Steven Brill or listened to this episode of This American Life or haven’t...
2 tags
Race to the Top?
The image above is taken from the annual Cheese Rolling competition in Gloucestershire, England, in which teams compete to roll a giant wheel of cheese to the top of a steep hill. The federal Race to the Top competition is similar, except in this case the states are competing for cheese rather than transporting it—$4 billion, to be exact.
But no one told New York State; our entry in the...
March 2010
4 posts
4 tags
Leaving Behind No Child Left Behind
Way back when George W. Bush was still trying to loudly proclaim that he was a “uniter, not a divider,” education reform was one of his hallmark initiatives. Working hand in hand with the late Ted Kennedy, he passed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) —one of the most ambitious laws ever to try to mend the flaws in American education.
Now, almost nine years after its passage, the...
5 tags
Bad Teachers, Redux
This week was Newsweek’s Education Edition; consequently, I had a lot of material to work with. Probably the most controversial article was the piece entitled “Firing Bad Teachers.” Here, Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert advocate, unsurprisingly, the firing of bad teachers. Most of the article is an interesting exercise in stating the obvious—yet in the Bizarro World of...
3 tags
Classroom Management
Elizabeth Green’s “Building a Better Teacher” from this week’s New York Times Magazine was forwarded to me by no less than 11 people. First, let me break the piece down into its basic elements. Then I will comment.
(1) Lots of schools in America are struggling.
(2) Schools and other reformers have tried doing all kinds of things to fix the schools, but these attempts...
2 tags
Half-Baked Policies
For four years, I was the Coordinator of Student Affairs at a very large public high school. In this capacity, in addition to teaching three classes, I was also in charge of overseeing the school’s 200+ student-run clubs and publications. These groups were the life-blood of the institution; some were serious and devoted to social action and debate, while others were simply organized forums...
February 2010
4 posts
3 tags
The Missing Ingredient
It’s always interesting when Bob Herbert tackles education reform, and unlike many op-ed columnists, he actually goes out and does reporting. In his piece, “Where the Bar Ought To Be,” he visits one of the Harlem Village Academy schools run by Deborah Kenny. Herbert is impressed by what he sees at this charter school, taking special note of the discipline with which the place...
3 tags
Firing Bad Teachers
I’m in a PHD program, and a lot of my peers are worried about their prospects. There are so few academic jobs out there, they’ll need to take whatever is offered to them. And then there is the struggle for tenure—they’ll be expected to publish articles, write books and kiss senior faculty ass simultaneously. How funny! As a New York City public school teacher, I...
3 tags
Ice Skating v. Luge
Every couple of years it happens: my normal routine is shattered and giant invisible hands pick me up and hold me in my seat as I watch the unfolding of another Olympics. Indeed, I was one of the hapless few who bought NBC’s ill-fated Triplecast of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. I have an especially ambiguous feeling about the Winter Olympics in particular—I think that Reihan Salam...
4 tags
The Embarrassment Factor
Another day, another embarrassing story about an appalling teacher in the New York Post. Apparently, among other things, Queens teacher Francisco Olivares has: impregnated and married a 16 year-old ex-student (whom he taught when she was 13), sexually molested two 12 year-olds and, in 2002, ”backed a girl against a wall and caressed her arms while urging her not to transfer, saying,...