Sleeping During Testimony

I spent 2 years in the New York city public school system at a rough inner manhattan school and, during that time, knew of 3 different teachers who received enough unsatisfactories to be 'tried' to see if they should retain their licenses. Now, I myself was never in their classrooms so I'm not writing to judge them or my school--but I couldn't help but be amazed by a recent article in the New York Times education . Apparently, 1 artibtrator who was in charge of deciding the fate of a new york city teacher's job and (I think license) actually feel asleep during testimony. Here's a direct quote from the times's article:

Arbitrator Goldberg’s sleep ‘episodes’ were witnessed by three department attorneys, as well as two hearing witnesses.”

Just had to share this one. Sometimes is truth is stranger than fiction

NYTimes article on education games

Don't have much time here but jst a quick post--read a great article in the New York Times about how education based video games are becoming more and more popular. Give the article a read.

Personally, my favorite site for math games is The Math Games.com

New York Tutoring

Another interesting article on new york tutoring--one of my favorite subjects and one I've written about before.

I sometimes wonder what tutors can make in other suburbs. $125 to $140 an hour for high school level tutoring in new york

I'd be curious to know what the going rate for calculus tutors in other places like Boston, San Francisco is .

Test Prepping in New York and Los Angeles

Read an interesting article here --the basic premise is that students do not have enough play time at school--that nowadays students's schedules are much more structured with little 'choice' time. Here's a direct quote:

Among the findings is the fact that kindergartners in New York City and Los Angeles spend almost three hours a day engaged in reading and math instruction and test preparation, leaving fewer than 30 minutes for "choice time," or play.

Apparently teachers in New York city and LA are doing a lot of test prepping. Now, I've certainly never taught in the elementary levels, but I can definitely say that the same emphasis on test scores pervades both of the New York high schools where I have taught--one of which was an inner city school in Manhattan and the other is a high nonperforming district in Westchester county. For better or for worse, No Child Left Behind has imbued schools and teachers with a sense of the importance of standardized tests-- after all, a large factor in your school's ratings has to do with these test scores so it is only natural.

Obama--radically change teacher education schools

I just read an interesting article (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091022/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_teachers).

It looks like the Obama administration wants to change the education prep schools. Read the article for the full low down but a quick summary is--
education schools are 'cash cows' for universities becuase lots of teachers enroll in them and the schooling costs the universities little but these schools, according to many teachers, don't really prepare teachers for the classroom.

I took classes at two different graduate education schools including Columbia University's Teachers College (one of the top ranked ones both in New York state and the nation), and I definitely agree that the schools are heavy on theory and light on the real experience and mentoring that would better server teachers new to the profession.

Obama and Extended School Year

If you're a teacher , you've probably read about Obama's desire to increase the school year in an effort to increase America's competitiveness internationally. I understand the logic in this proposal which goes something like 1) other countries' students do better on international tests than we do 2) other countries have longer school years --> therefore we should have longer school years to get better test scores.

However, nothing operates in a vacuum and, in my opinion, until America's culture shifts and students and families start putting more responsibility on the student--it really won't matter much how long the school year is --because students just don't work that hard. Yes, they might work a few more weeks under this proposal but if those weeks consist of the diluted efforts that characterize much of American students's work--then the benifit will, in my prediction, be marginal at best.

I'm sorry to say it--but a lack of work ethic pervades the attitudes of a large proportion of our youth--and I say this as someone who teaches in one of the 'top 100 public school's in the US (according to those newsweek). Until more families start to place greater responsibility and value on doing well in school, a few weeks here and there won't have much, if any, of an impact on the international academic standings of our students.



Some related articles
1) the negative economic impacts of this proposal

Trying to Earn a Buck as a Teacher!

I wanted to write a quick post about teacher salaries--I have worked for some of the lowest and highest paying counties in New York state ----and , wow, I can tell you there is quite a range. At one private school--where I first started teaching, the salary was barely enough to survive and teachers did a lot of private tutoring to make up for this. There's a lot more opportunity to make some good tutoring to money in private schools where the parents are, in general, wealthier and more inclined to spend the money on home tutors. That said, there are some public schools --like my current one in WestChester County--that have a pretty darn high base line salary (starting salary is about 60K I believe and goes up above 6 figures--at 8 years you're already make about 90K!) My school is not even the highest paying in Westchester County or in Long Island. Talk about a quality of life change--moreover, these high paying counties have many of the perks that you would normally seein a private school including: 1) generally smaller class sizes albiet not as small as most private schoosl 2) generally motivated and high achieving students 3) more opportunties for private tutoring!

If you want to be a New York Tutor, check out Hubalub.com --I'll write a bit more about them in a future post but they're a site that helps New York based tutors find tutoring. The site only accepts certified public school teachers so if you have your certification check em out!



Other good Links for Tutoring in New York:

1. http://www.mathwarehouse.com/private-tutoring/state/new-york/new-york-tutors.php a good low dow of new york tutoring including some of the best places to tutor in new york
2. Jobs for teachers and Tutors in New York