Katrina: two years later
Two years ago the government failed - but the people are fighting back.
from the New York Times
another great piecce about education, this time in the Times
Schools Fight for Teachers Because of High Turnover
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The retirement of thousands of baby boomer teachers coupled with the departure of younger teachers frustrated by the stress of working in low-performing schools is fueling a crisis in teacher turnover that is costing school districts substantial amounts of money as they scramble to fill their ranks for the fall term.
Superintendents and recruiters across the nation say the challenge of putting a qualified teacher in every classroom is heightened in subjects like math and science and is a particular struggle in high-poverty schools, where the turnover is highest. Thousands of classes in such schools have opened with substitute teachers in recent years.
Here in Guilford County, N.C., turnover had become so severe in some high-poverty schools that principals were hiring new teachers for nearly every class, every term. To staff its neediest schools before classes start on Aug. 28, recruiters have been advertising nationwide, organizing teacher fairs and offering one of the nation’s largest recruitment bonuses, $10,000 to instructors who sign up to teach Algebra I.
“We had schools where we didn’t have a single certified math teacher,” said Terry Grier, the schools superintendent. “We needed an incentive, because we couldn’t convince teachers to go to these schools without one.”
Guilford County, which has 116 schools, is far from the only district to take this route as school systems compete to fill their ranks. Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit policy group that seeks to encourage better teaching, said hundreds of districts were offering recruitment incentives this summer.
Officials in New York, which has the nation’s largest school system, said they had recruited about 5,000 new teachers by mid-August, attracting those certified in math, science and special education with a housing incentive that can include $5,000 for a down payment.
New York also offers subsidies through its teaching fellows program, which recruits midcareer professionals from fields like health care, law and finance. The money helps defer the cost of study for a master’s degree. The city expects to hire at least 1,300 additional teachers before school begins on Sept. 4, said Vicki Bernstein, director of teacher recruitment.
Los Angeles has offered teachers signing with low-performing schools a $5,000 bonus. The district, the second-largest in the country, had hired only about 500 of the 2,500 teachers it needed by Aug. 15 but hoped to begin classes fully staffed, said Deborah Ignagni, chief of teacher recruitment.
In Kansas, Alexa Posny, the state’s education commissioner, said the schools had been working to fill “the largest number of vacancies” the state had ever faced. This is partly because of baby boomer retirements and partly because districts in Texas and elsewhere were offering recruitment bonuses and housing allowances, luring Kansas teachers away.
“This is an acute problem that is becoming a crisis,” Ms. Posny said.
In June, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a nonprofit group that seeks to increase the retention of quality teachers, estimated from a survey of several districts that teacher turnover was costing the nation’s districts some $7 billion annually for recruiting, hiring and training.
Demographers agree that education is one of the fields hardest hit by the departure of hundreds of thousands of baby boomers from the work force, particularly because a slowdown in hiring in the 1980s and 1990s raised the average age of the teaching profession. Still, they debate how serious the attrition will turn out to be.
In New York, the wave of such retirements crested in the early years of this decade as teachers left well before they hit their 60s, without a disruptive teacher shortage, Ms. Bernstein said.
In other parts of the country, the retirement bulge is still approaching, because pension policies vary among states, said Michael Podgursky, an economist at the University of Missouri. California is projecting that it will need 100,000 new teachers over the next decade from the retirement of the baby boomers alone.
Some educators say it is the confluence of such retirements with the departure of disillusioned young teachers that is creating the challenge. In addition, higher salaries in the business world and more opportunities for women are drawing away from the field recruits who might in another era have proved to be talented teachers with strong academic backgrounds.
“The problem is not mainly with retirement,” said Thomas G. Carroll, the president of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. “Our teacher preparation system can accommodate the retirement rate. The problem is that our schools are like a bucket with holes in the bottom, and we keep pouring in teachers.”
The commission has calculated that these days nearly a third of all new teachers leave the profession after just three years, and that after five years almost half are gone — a higher turnover rate than in the past.
All the coming and going of young teachers is tremendously disruptive, especially to schools in poor neighborhoods where teacher turnover is highest and students’ needs are greatest.
According to the most recent Department of Education statistics available, about 269,000 of the nation’s 3.2 million public school teachers, or 8.4 percent, quit the field in the 2003-4 school year. Thirty percent of them retired, and 56 percent said they left to pursue another career or because they were dissatisfied.
The federal No Child Left Behind law requires schools and districts to put a qualified teacher in every classroom. The law has led districts to focus more seriously on staffing its low-performing schools, educators said, but it does not appear to have helped persuade veteran teachers to continue their service in them.
Tim Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a group that helps urban districts recruit teachers, said attrition often resulted from chaotic hiring practices, because novice teachers are often assigned at the last moment to positions for which they have not even interviewed. Later, overwhelmed by classroom stress, many leave the field.
Chicago and New York are districts that have invested heavily and worked with teachers unions in recent years to improve hiring and transfer policies, Mr. Daly said.
“But most of the urban districts have no coherent hiring strategy,” he said. Many receive thousands of teacher applications in the spring but leave them unprocessed until principals return from August vacations, when more organized suburban districts have already hired the most-qualified teachers, he said.
“There isn’t any maliciousness in this,” Mr. Daly said, “it’s just a conspiracy of dysfunction.”
In Guilford County, Washington Elementary School, which serves students from a housing project, had churned through several principals and most of its teachers several years ago, and had repeatedly failed to make federal testing goals, said Dr. Grier, the superintendent.
“Teachers were worried it was becoming a failing school,” Dr. Grier said. To rebuild morale, he recruited a principal from Chicago, Grenita Lathan. Her first year at Washington was a nightmare, Ms. Lathan said, because her predecessors had been so panicked to fill classroom vacancies that they had hired “just anybody.”
“All they wanted was warm bodies in the classroom,” she said. At job fairs, qualified teachers she tried to hire shunned her, she said.
Under Guilford County’s incentive program, math or reading teachers who sign on at any of 29 high-poverty schools receive bonuses of $2,500 to $10,000. They can earn additional bonuses if they raise achievement.
Those incentives helped Ms. Lathan recruit solid teachers last year, she said, and after much tutoring and hard work, students met federal testing targets. This summer all but one teacher signed up for another year.
Other Guilford County schools have also used the incentives to hire promising people.
Rebecca Rheinheimer moved from Indiana this summer, attracted by a $2,500 bonus to teach at Oak Hill Elementary, where the teaching staff has been strengthened by the use of such bonuses. The school, in High Point, met its federal testing targets this spring for the first time in several years.
Margaret Eaddy-Busch, a veteran math teacher, moved from Philadelphia this summer to teach at Dudley High, which had become known as a hard-to-staff school. She will receive a $10,000 bonus for teaching Algebra I.
“If I survived in Philly for 10 years,” Ms. Eaddy-Busch said, “I’ll do just fine here.”
But it remains unclear whether the incentive program will retain good teachers as effectively as it attracts them.
“It’s challenging to teach in these high-needs schools,” said Mark Jewell, president of the local teachers union. “These new teachers will have a trial by fire, and then it’ll be a revolving door.”
michael moore a Roma
Michael Moore e' un grande. I suoi film sono interessantissimi - ma mi chiedo che senso abbia vederli all'estero.
Certo, ricordandomi alcune discussioni avute anni addietro, direi che e' sempre utile rendersi conto della realta' degli Stati Uniti, piuttosto che delle immagini costruite ad arte dai pubblicitari statunitensi e dal Dipartimento di Stato.
Da tempo dico: studiamo bene gli Stati Uniti, perche' ci sono cose da imparare (come le elezioni a ballottaggio istantaneo), ma non crediamo a chi vuole darci a intendere che si tratti di un modello da seguire alla cieca.
MARCH IN NEWARK, AUGUST 25TH
Where: Newark, Lincoln Park
When: Saturday, August 25th, 12 noon
What: The People's March for Peace, Equality, Jobs and Justice!
Stop the war in Iraq, stop the war in our streets!
this promises to be the largest demonstration in the recent history of Newark, with people pouring in from all parts of the state. Traditional Peace Groups, organized labor, and Newark's grassroots organizations have joined forces for this extraordinary event.
The keynote speaker will be Rep. John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, who will be preceded by a videotaped message sent especially by Michael Moore.
Key demands:
- Troops Home Now!
- Health care for All! support HR 676!
- Justice for survivors of Hurrican Katrina!
for more info, call 801 457 9557
or visit www.peaceandjusticecoalition.org
reading the newspaper...
Ehud Barak is widely recognized as a "Dove" in the spectrum of Israeli politics. yet here are some of his comments since becoming defense secretary:
[...] the shortcomings he found in the defense establishment stemmed from the budget cuts of the past few years, including in programs aimed at bolstering the IDF's ability to counter emerging strategic threats in the Middle East. [...]
Another element of Barak's doctrine is the development of a "long reach" that would allow the army to operate "far from its borders, with the ability to strike accurately and painfully."
In other words, a leading "dove" proposes increasing Israel's military budget (sacrificing yet further Israel's already weakened social safety net) and the development of means to strike other countries. i wonder which countries he has in mind, under which circumstances he envisions "striking" themand whether he pays any mind to those insignificant details such as the UN Charter, which forbids unilateral military action. Then again, the US never has, so why should the leading recipient of US aid?
true things in the newspaper
This was in the Tuesday, August 21st edition of the Seattle PI
Students are casualties of math wars
While debates rage over how to teach math, kids aren't learning and teachers are struggling. In spite of valiant efforts on the part of Washington educators, too many students are underperforming on the WASL, SAT and other national tests.
It's no surprise, then, that mathematics education reform is the focus in the Washington Learns report, Gov. Chris Gregoire's P-20 (preschool through college) Council and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Teacher preparation in math education needs a new direction if we are to ready our children for the challenges of life in the new century. Students need to know how to solve problems using the conceptual framework of mathematics and scientific inquiry. They need math teachers who can show them how.
Leaders need to work together to solve three problems in order to produce enough qualified math teachers: the so-called math wars, math phobia and math teacher funding.
State curriculum leaders must step out of the paralyzing impasse of opposing philosophies about how to teach math. On one side are those who say students need basic math skills, including memorizing formulas and practicing drills. Their opponents say students need to understand the concepts underlying mathematical reasoning, an approach that emphasizes real-world story problems. Curriculum leaders must close the gap between memorizing an abstract mathematical formula and solving the same problem in a real setting. For students to learn math and be able to use it for their lives, they need both high-level skills and problem-solving knowledge learned in a hands-on setting.
Too many elementary teacher candidates in Washington lack the knowledge and skill to teach math. In training teachers, math is the only area in which college professors consistently must teach content as well as methods of teaching. Those who wish to teach elementary school are often math phobic -- and fearful teachers do not give enough classroom attention to math. Is it any wonder that children have not learned?
As professors in colleges of education, it is our job to prepare secondary teachers, but we need the assistance of a strong K-12 pipeline, clear curricular leadership by OSPI and legislative support.
We need more teacher education scholarships from federal and state government to recruit more high school math teachers. We must pay more for teachers willing to work in this high-demand field, even if that means they get more than other teachers. The Professional Education Standards Board needs to open this conversation, and the Legislature must step up and allot funding in the next session. Business and industry actively recruit graduates with math ability. Schools cannot compete. Do the math: A graduate with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering starts at $56,000, economics/finance at $45,000 and a Washington teacher at $32,000.
We must also expect more from students. Passing the 10th grade WASL does not mean a student is prepared for college math. Students must work on college readiness after they take the test. The Washington State Transition Mathematics Project -- a collaborative project of K-12, community and technical colleges, and baccalaureate institutions -- has recently published a comprehensive set of college readiness standards. Adopting them will help us train math teachers.
Teacher educators and OSPI must leave the math-war battlefield and provide a consistent, balanced curriculum that includes skills, fluency and natural approaches to problem solving. OSPI must collaborate with colleges of education in designing and implementing this balanced approach to teaching math for real-world results. Our students are counting on us.
goodbye newark
i leave tomorrow for the west coast.
since i sincerely dislike flying, i will be taking the train: less hassle, more space, more scenery, less use of greenhouse gases, and zero risk of falling thousands of feet to a watery death. Really, the only downside is the amount of time (three days from East Coast to West Coast), but until i start school i will have nothig but time.
There are many things that i would like to say about my experience in Newark, but I would rather not consider it a closed book: living and working here shaped my perception of the world. And i plan to be back
NEVER FORGET / PER NON DIMENTICARE
an aerial view of hiroshima, after the dropping of the nuclear bomb, 62 years ago
i would suggest commemrating the event by watching this brief video
una storia piu' leggera
normalmente cerco di occuparmi di cose piu' serie, ma ho visto una storia sul New York Times sulla pratica di metteri i "lucchetti dell'amore", e ho pensato che ne avrei reso partecipi gl iitaliani...
rage against the machine
On August 28th I wento to see rage against the machine, reunited, at Randall's Island. the venue sucked. there were too many people, I couldn't see the stage even though I was close up.
Throughout the day, the festival had an all-hip hop line-up, but the crowd was almost entirely composed of white boys, not unlike myself of course. And, which is almost worse, there was an almost total absence of any kind of politica consciousness. We saw people wearing ared forces t-shirts, people in designer clothes...
I was disappointed, and i felt completely uncomfortable, especially when Cypress Hill made sexist remarks, and it just got downright bizzarre when the wu-tang clan used the n-word to address the crowd.
i kept thinking: "i hope zack cansomehow redeem all of this." And he did.
From the NY Times: On April 29th, during rage against the machine’s reunion concert at the Coachella festival, Zack De La Rocha gave a speech accusing the Bush administration of war crimes and said, “They should be tried and hung and shot.” A clip found its way to the Fox News program “Hannity & Colmes.” The on-screen headline read, “Rock grp ‘Rage Against the Machine’ says Bush admin should be shot.”
On Saturday night Mr. De La Rocha responded. [During an extended musical break in the middle of Wake Up] he attacked the “fascist” Fox News pundits for “claiming that we said that the president should be assassinated.” As the crowd shouted its approval, he continued, “No: he should be brought to trial as a war criminal and hung and shot. That’s what we said.”
Zack continued, by saying that they stand in solidarity with young people: both the soldiers, who are in Iraq fighting a war for oil, and the young iraqis who are resisting the war every day. He ended by suggesting that it was about time that we started resisting the war here at home with the same intensity that Iraqi youth were resisting it in Iraq.
The thought of several tens of thousands of apolitical young white men paying $80 to hear someone say that warmed through the rest of the night.
creating instability
there can be no doubt that the united states is a major source of instability in the Middle East: our government is the prime supplier of weapons to nearly all the states in the region. It is last week's news that the US is preparing an arms sals deal to the Gulf States (primarily Saudi Arabia) for around $20 BILLION.
In the same deal, Israel will receive $30 billion in U.S. military aid over the next decade, averaging $3 billion a year.
Where to begin? Perhaps with this quote from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: "We understand the United States' need to assist the moderate Arab states, which are standing in one front with the United States and us in the struggle against Iran,"
Ahhh, the irony of it all. Saudi Arabia is a moderate Arab State? Let us never forget that Saudi Arabia is the most extreme islamist theocracy in the world, with an atrocious human rights record. It is particularly useful to remember this fact when we hear the fearmorngers talk about the "clash of civilizations." The United States sells billions of dollars of weapons to the most fundamentalist islamic state in the world.
Then we ought to talk about the "special relationship" between the US and Israel. Let's forget about everything else for a moment and discuss Israel's settlement policy. Israel - eveyone agrees - is occupying the West Bank, and is therefore subject to the Fourth Geneva convention (section III, article 49), which states unambiguously that "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
And yet Israel has been undertaking a MASSIVE settlement operation in the West Bank. The construction of their "separation wall" is in large part intended to protect the settlements - and was thus judged unlawful by the Interational Court of Justice.
The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem does a fantastic job of documenting the awful impact of Israel's colonial plans - as does the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, which ought to be read carefully by any US citizen who wishes to gain a clearer perspective on the issue.
These two news items prove my point:
1) the Israeli Supreme court rejected petitions against the route of the West Bank separation fence in the area of Efrat, saying the route of the fence was determined to defend the settlement, located in Gush Etzion. (in other words, the Israeli Supreme court has decided that it is imperative to defend the illegal settlement despite the ICJs decision, international law be damned)
2) some of the people who live in the settlements routinely commit barbaric acts of violence against Palestinians, which very rarely get reported in the US press, but occasionally they also attack United Nations employees.
Now, if only the New York Times and the other papers had a headline that said:
US SUPPORTS RADICAL ISLAMIC THEOCRACY AND IMPLICITLY ENDORSES ISRAEL'S VIOLATIONS OF GENEVA CONVENTIONS, CREATING INSTABILITY IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Attenzione!
Il manifesto sta facendo un interessantissimo sondaggio tra i militanti di base di rifondazione. Quanto segue e' l'inizio dell'articolo di martedi.
«Ma chi l'ha detto che gli operai sono di sinistra? Forse in passato, adesso in fabbrica va tutto bene se parli di condizioni di lavoro, anche gli scioperi si fanno e riescono bene. Ma come il discorso finisce sulla politica, la musica cambia». Giovanni Prisco è degato Fiom alla Ip Cleaning dove 190 dipendenti costruiscono macchine per le pulizie industriali. Tessera di Rifondazione comunista, passione politica, scelta convinta ma tanta delusione per l'esperienza di governo. Delusione e incazzatura sono sentimenti ampiamente condivisi tra i militanti del Prc che lavorano in fabbrica. Non si tratta tanto di posizioni ideologiche legate alle numerose componenti che affollano il Prc, quanto piuttosto del portato dell'impegno quotidiano tra gli operai. La nostra inchiesta sugli umori e le aspettative dei rifondaroli di fabbrica ci porta nel cuore dell'Emilia per la seconda puntata.
Acqua pubblica e multinazionali
E' notizia di oggi che la Pepsi e' stata costretta (dopo una lunga campagnadi pressione pubblica) ad etichettare le bottiglie di Aquafina ammettendo che si tratta di Acqua di Rubinetto - cosi' come lo e' l'acqua della coca cola, che si chiama Dasani.
Questo mi ha spinto a cercare informazioni sulle marche di acqua pubblica della Nestle. Sono cortesi, c'e' un sito internet sul quale si puo' controllare tutte le marche che possiedono.
Voglio anche ringraziare Samuele per aver indicato la campagna IMBROCCHIAMOLA, un progetto di altraeconomia, per combattere lo strapotere dell'acqua in bottiglia.
E voglio anche ricordare di continuare a tenere d'occhio la campagna in italia Acqua Bene Comune, che propone una legge che proibisca la privatizzazione dell'acqua pubblica.
Ultimi commenti