First Newspaper, FINISHED

My newspaper staff finished their first newspaper.  Please go take a look at all their hard work, which can be seen on my school blog - mrwoahn.wordpress.com.  Thanks for your support!

The Unbreakable, Impossibly Powerful, Teacher's Unions

Today was just another ridiculous example of the many, many possible examples, of the long reaching, ridiculously powerful, yet inept arm of the Teacher's Unions.  Every Thursday, we have early out days at school.  As a kid, early out days were a God-send, since it meant that we had a few hours less of school and we could spend more time out being kids.  I never once thought about what the teachers were doing on early out days.  Now I know all to well.

Normally our school lets out at 4, but on early out day we're done at 1  (Strangely enough, despite the severely shortened class periods, these are often my most effective days).  Then, from 1-4 we're supposed to have Professional Development meetings (PD).  Every other week we have a school level PD, and on the off weeks we have district level PD's.  Now, the PD's in and of themselves are a completely different topic for me to write about, so I won't go in to length about how fabulously productive they are (imagine those last four words laced heavily with sarcasm), but district ones like today really get me going.

Last year our district spent some ~$4 million on a program called AEMP, which stands for Academic English Mastery Program.  This program was actually very interesting to me, for about the first 3-4 meetings that I attended.  But then after going to these first few meetings without actually producing anything or taking anything away that I could use in my classroom, it dawned on me that it was a colossal waste of time.  However, I was still required to attend every month.  So I just started taking my laptop and lesson planning for the entire meeting.  Time, un-wasted.  And then the year ended and I figured I was done with AEMP.

Wrong.  AEMP has made its way back onto the district payroll somehow, and today I had a big fat, three and a half hour chunk of my day wasted, literally hearing almost word-for-word the exact same presentation that I heard last year.  Now with the stage set, let's get back to the Union.  You might be asking yourself at this point "Jonathan, what in the world does this all have to do with the Union?"

Let's take a step back, and look at the entire situation.  At the end of the last academic school year, SFUSD had to make around $114 million in budget cuts over the next two years.  But somehow they found the money to re-fund AEMP, and I'm willing to bet that a portion of that money came from a proposition that was pushed through in San Francisco, called Proposition A.

Proposition A was a land parcel tax in the amount of $198 per taxable land property in San Francisco that was dedicated towards the school district to be used to develop higher skilled staff by means of district mandates, initiatives, professional developments, and aimed at attracting higher quality teachers by raising salaries, providing incentives to teach at designated "hard-to-staff" schools as well as "hard-to-staff" subjects.  Now, I can't really complain about this particular tax, because I am a direct beneficiary, teaching both a difficult subject at a nearly impossible school.  But that's beside the point, which is, that thanks to this wonderful tax getting pushed through, I was able to waste a good 3.5 hours of my life at a PD that I HAVE ALREADY HAD TO SIT THROUGH ONCE BEFORE!  And the tax was able to get pushed through in large part because of the lobbying that took place by.... you guessed it - the Union!  So if I go far enough back, I can place a large part of my misery today squarely on the shoulders of the Union.

So far as I can tell, the slight increase on my monthly paycheck is really the best, latest thing that I have to thank the Union for.  But, oh, wait a second - what's that?  That increase is going back to fund the Union via the MANDATED monthly dues?  Hmmmmmm.... does anyone see anything fishy about this situation?  The Union pushes through extra funding for teachers.... but then they know that teachers are mandated by the district to join the Union and pay not only a fixed monthly fee, but an additional 1.5% on any BONUS they may receive!  Like... PROPOSITION A FUNDING!  So essentially, by the Union backing Proposition A, and pushing it through to the voters - they essentially guaranteed a cool half a million in Union dues, annually, for as long as Proposition A remains in effect.  Well crafted!

BTW - I now know that the Union dues are mandatory, on good authority.  Here's a screen shot of an email I sent off to the district office last week:

So, here's a thought.  If Union dues are mandatory, and I can't get out of it, what's to stop the Union from saying "Well, $XXX per month is no longer sufficient to run our organization, let's make it $XXXXXXX per month (given that X is a variable that you can fill in with the digit of your choice)."  Now, I am sure there are some legal issues involved here, but the point I want to make is - their members CAN'T LEAVE!  Even if they want to, they can't!  I mean, if you are unhappy with your cellular service because they raise their fees, you leave!  If you can't pay the new rent amount of your apartment, you leave!  If your job starts paying you too much and all of a sudden you're in a new, higher tax bracket, you find ways to adjust your income and cheat the government into thinking you've made less due to tax write-offs and charitable donations to drop down to your previous tax bracket.  But no, not the Union.  You don't wanna pay the dues, well, I guess you get out of teaching.  But shouldn't you just be able to leave the Union?  They say two things are certain in life - death and taxes.  Beyond that, there's one thing certain in death, and that's that even in death, the Union will still be taking your dues.  Maybe not, I made that last part up, but to be totally honest, it wouldn't surprise me if there's some pension withdrawal fee that gets paid to the Union.

After having read my strongly worded arguments, I'm sure you're trying to puzzle out how the Unions even still exist, in spite of all the wrongs that I've enumerated.  Don't get me wrong - I truly feel that Unions played an integral role in bringing the public education system up to the level that it is today, and helped to level the playing field for teachers across the board as far as discriminatory policies go.  And before you go off scoffing about the "level that it is today", even though the United States ranks ~25th in the world for public education , maybe we'd be even further down on that list without the Unions.  A quick look on the Wikipedia page of the NEA (National Education Association - the nations largest professional organization) shows a fairly impressive list of accomplishments. However, their most recent, notable accomplishment really took place in 1984.  The last two on that list, notice the wording.  2000's - "lobbied for changes".  So in other words, nothing has yet been accomplished, but they've been working on it.  But I doubt there's an educator in America who would disagree that serious changes should be made to NCLB (That's what we in the industry called it.  Or so says Wikipedia).  And the last one doesn't make a lot of sense if you expand the acronym of NEA to say "National Education Association".  I'm not really certain what they mean in that last sentence, but I'm fairly certain that advocating equal treatment to same-sex couples is all the rage right now across the nation.  But it's good to see that the NEA has decided to jump on that train.

I would think that for having an operating budget in excess of $307 million, they'd have a bit bigger list of accomplishments.  Especially in the mysteriously quiet 25 years from 1984 to 2009....

To me, the evidence suggests that the age of the Teacher's Unions is over.  I will wholeheartedly agree that they had their time and place, but in the current age - change needs to happen.  WfS (Waiting for Superman, for those who didn't read my last post) places a lot of blame on the current state of education with the Unions, and while I don't think they're the only culprits, I do believe that the Unions need some enormous restructuring and to be cut down a few notches in power.  The Unions will bring their rebuttal with the fact that the #1 public education system in the world (Finland, of all places!) have their teachers Unionized.  Ok.  So what?  Obviously their Unions aren't standing in the way of progress the way that I really feel ours are in the current state.  But that's just my opinion.  Thoughts anyone?

See Superman, Waiting For

After grabbing a delicious chicken shawerma wrap at Truly Mediterranean, my roommate Danny and I caught a 7:40 showing of "Waiting for Superman" in downtown SF.  The subsequent 120 minutes of my life were a torrent of varied emotions that hit surprisingly close to home, and continued on to provoke the inquiry centers of my brain non-stop for the next 36 hours.

This movie has sparked a conversation in my mind, which I believe will turn into a series of blog entries centered around the same topic, mainly the numerous items presented in the movie and the various debates which it has sparked.  The long and short of it all is this:

Go see "Waiting for Superman".

There are so many criticisms about this film, and the greatest thing is that they aren't all black and white.  This isn't a two sided issue where people are for or against it - it's a multifaceted coin with rounded edges that is likely to flip at any moment.  There's the opinion of those for and against the union, those who are for and against public schools, of charter versus private versus public, of public reform and a million other issues, and any combination in between.  And since this is the case, the message of the film will continue to gain strength as it fulfills its true purpose - of sparking conversation on the public education system.

Having said that, I would like to talk about the movie itself a bit first, and hold off on addressing the individual debates for future blog posts.  "Waiting for Superman" (hereafter referred to as WfS) is a dramatically effective documentary that utilizes the lottery-entry based system of a few different charter schools for five students across the country to drive the message of the film.

When I say lottery, what I mean is that some of the highest achieving, public charter schools can only accept a specified number of students.  And due to the fact that since the schools are so high achieving, there are many more applications to attend that school than there are positions available.  So, since the charter school is a public school, they need to provide the same opportunity for all applicants, and thus enters the lottery - a system to provide equal probability to each applicant to the program.

If you were to take WfS at face value, you might think that it's these students lives that are at stake with the lottery.  And to be totally honest, if it were any of the students who were not actually at the lotteries, you wouldn't be far off.  What do I mean by this?  Well, I'll expound upon this further in an upcoming blog entry, but for now - know that every one of the students in this film have extremely supportive, concerned parents (or guardians).  They're concerned enough to put the research into the schools, to make the effort to apply, to get their child emotionally invested in their education, and help them to care about their futures.  This fact alone is probably sufficient to waive the death sentence that gets signed by some of these kids not getting into the schools.  (Combined now with the fact that they've been in this movie and touched the hearts of every person who goes to see it, they'll probably have their education paid for for the rest of their lives.)

It's the millions of students who were NOT at the lottery.  For any one of them, getting in to that charter school, or winning the lottery most likely WOULD be the difference between a successful future and the state penitentiary.  As I watched this movie, I could literally only think of two or three of my student's parents who would go through this type of effort to apply for a charter school.  And as I watched and read the jaw dropping statistics about the number of students who drop out of high school correlating with the number of them that end up in the state penitentiary, the names of my students flashed through my mind.  It absolutely PAINS me to think about it, but I could probably name off at least 8 of my students that will likely be facing jail time within the next 5-6 years.  The signs are all there...

But what can I do about it?  I bust my hide on a daily basis to provide the best education that my 13 months in the classroom can afford.  I play as large a role in these kids lives at school, as well as beyond the school yard that I can manage, I try to connect with them not only at an educational level, but at a personal level.  I take notice of their behaviors, I know their demeanors, I can tell when a student is behaving in a manner that isn't attune to their normal repertoire, I can sense when they're having a bad day, and I let them know that I love them daily, that I care for them.  And if they don't know this by now, it's because they're blind, deaf and dumb - I literally tell them this every day, and if actions don't speak louder than words, then by golly I don't know how to communicate.

Thus enters the title - "Waiting for Superman".  As a member of public education, it feels like we're waiting for Superman to come save the day.  Waiting for that one key public policy that will turn the tides, waiting for that one administrator who will flip the school upside down, waiting for that federal grant that will literally force feed education to my kids on a golden spoon.  However, if we sit around and wait for the education system to get fixed, we'll be waiting as long as we would be for Superman to clean up the Gulf from the BP oil spill.

Let's get the ball rolling on this.  TFA calls the educational achievement gap "our nation's greatest injustice".  I thought I knew what that meant, but after having seen this film and contemplated on the implications, I wholeheartedly believe it.  Be a part of the action, and go see WfS.


Stay tuned for the exciting, upcoming blog entries:

1.  Teacher's Unions, what are they good for?
2.  The Three Pillars of Education
3.  Charter Schools versus Public

State of the Union

I just got a letter in the mail today from the Union.  It's titled "Not Waiting for Superman".  As you may have heard, there is a movie out in theaters right now, a documentary, that more or less attacks the public schools system and the unions and places the blame for the failure of the public education system at the feet of the unions.  Now, I haven't seen the movie yet so I can't say one thing for or against it - but I'm going to see it this Friday with my roommate, and I'm stoked.

They say the truth hurts.  I'm guessing the Union President, the same man who wrote the letter to me, was writhing in agony as he saw the movie.

May the Union go down in a ball of flames.  I can't stand it.  Not only have I paid over $400 in Union dues over the last year for an organization that I can't personally endorse, nor do I morally support, but I just realized that I was paying less than 1/2 of full member fees.  Turns out that since I was an "intern" last year, I didn't have to pay the full fee, but now that I'm no longer an intern, I get to pay the full fee for full membership.

What in the world am I paying for?  Due to the Union and their increased fees this year, as a credentialed teacher I am making LESS this year than last year, all to support an organization that I don't want to be a part of.

Woes of the Union.  For starters, when I was hired in to SFUSD, they required me to sign the paperwork to join the Union or to pay something like 8% of my paycheck to the charity of my choice.  Granted, I haven't checked in to see if tithing would count towards that, but it would seem to me that the Union has fitted itself into a tidy little, self sustaining position where it REQUIRES every single employee of a state organization to pay a good portion of their paycheck to it.  Sounds almost as great as having a job where you can essentially obtain job security for life after only two years of service, regardless of your performance.  Did somebody say  tenure?

Even more, I'm required to pay 1.5% of any BONUSES (yes, strangely enough, I do get certain bonuses) I may receive to the Union.  Where's Superman when you need him?

Premonitions of Parenting

My baseball team has two games every week - on Tuesday's and Thursday's.  And then we have practice on Monday and Wednesday.  On Wednesday of this week, Drew Serratore, the new IRF (Instructional Reform Facilitator) at our school came down to the baseball field to check out the team.  It's the first time he's ever come down and seen our kids play.

Drew happens to be TFA '05, and has proven to be a great friend at work.  He's definitely no substitute for Scott, Sylvia and Mash from last year, but between Drew and Katey, my school support network is in place.  Anyhow, Drew came down while our kids were right in the middle of playing a game called "Coaches vs. Students".  The original idea for the game was that we'd split the students up into three teams: one team played outfield, one team played infield, and the other team would be up to bat.  The idea was that I would pitch full time, and Mr. Young would play catcher.  Unfortunately, it turns out that pitching up close at half speed is really difficult, especially if you haven't pitched for over 10 years, so I ended up walking a lot of kids, or when I was throwing strikes - they just never swung at them.  So I had one of the students pitch.

I'm going to call the student I called in to pitch Lewis.  Lewis is currently in my 7th grade math class, and I also taught him last year.  He is a bright young man, but he has the attention span of a flea.  There have been days where I pull in Lewis after class to follow up with him on some lesson that I don't feel like he fully comprehended, and even when it's just he and I in the classroom, he'll look me in the eye for about 5 seconds before I see his eyes begin to wander.  When we're in class, I'll have to call Lewis' name about 10 times before it seems to register in his brain that I am talking to him.  The point here is, that I think that Lewis has learned to completely tune my voice out.  

The first practice that Lewis expressed interest in pitching, I pulled him aside and we talked about a couple fundamental best practices for pitching.  Very simple things like push off with your legs, or lift your leg up to help build forward momentum, or drop your arm so you aren't throwing from the elbow.  Things like the different from throwing from the stretch and from the windup.  And so I practiced with him, we worked on these things, and I continually reminded him when he'd be throwing in a game when to throw from the stretch and when to throw from the windup.  

But just as in class, Lewis just didn't seem to retain any of the information I told him.  In our game on Tuesday, Lewis pitched the entire time, but he never once correctly identified the situations when he should be throwing from the windup or the stretch, even when I would YELL AT HIM TO THROW FROM THE STRETCH SO THE RUNNERS DON'T STEAL!  But he'd still go from the windup.  The umpire commented to me that this kid needs to learn to throw from the stretch, and I tell him that I've worked with him on it.  Many, many, many times.  But I decide it's worth talking to him AGAIN since the runners are just trampling him, and so I walk out to him on the mound and show him yet once again, what I mean when I say to throw from the stretch.  He looks at me with his wandering eyes, and I ask him if he gets it now, he says yes, I walk back to the dugout, and then he proceeds to throw from the windup.  It just feels like nothing sticks with this kid.

Back to Wednesday.  Lewis is on the mound pitching, and there are runners on the bases.  At this point, we've been playing baseball now for something like 4 or 5 weeks, and I'm just tired of telling him things that he doesn't listen to me about - like throwing from the stretch or dropping his arm when he throws.  Drew shows up to practice, and I notice him talking with Lewis in between innings as we're having the teams move around the field, and demonstrating a couple stances.  The next inning, I see Lewis throwing from the stretch when runners get on the bases, and I notice him more and more dropping his arm as he pitches.  Ok....

After practice is over, Lewis runs up to the other coach, Mr. Young and I overhear him say "Mr. Young!  Mr. Serratore (Drew) today showed me a couple new things that I noticed made a HUGE difference in my pitching!  He showed me how to throw from a stretch when runners are on the bases, and he told me that if I drop my arm when I pitch it'll help me throw the ball faster!  And I did it today and it really worked!"

In my head, I'm as furious as fire.  I want to scream at Lewis and ask him if he has even heard a single thing I've said to him this year - not only on the baseball field, but in class.  But I keep my cool, and mumble to Mr. Young "This most definitely is NOT new to him...." and so Mr. Young says to Lewis "Are you sure this is new?  Is this really the first time you've heard this?" 

Lewis stops for a moment, his eyes narrow, and then he gets this foolish grin on his face and says "Oh yeah... I guess I remember Mr. Woahn saying something about this a couple weeks ago."  

This must be what it's like to have children.  You tell a kid something a million times, but you're just "Dumb 'ol mom/dad".  But as soon as an AUTHORITY figure says something, well then, it must be LAW!  Good grief. Any insight as to why that is?

Numbers and Stuff

I went to Office Depot this week to pick up an ink cartridge for my printer.  My printer is an HP Photosmart Plus, which I've had for over a year now.  It's been a decent printer, but it always blows my mind at how quickly the ink runs out.  It seems that I print about 100 pages (in black and white, mostly) and it starts to tell me that I'm  out of ink.  In all the colors.  I have no idea how the magenta runs out on black and white, but that's another story.

When I get to Office Depot, I realize I'd forgotten to get the model number for the ink cartridge I needed, so I looked around the store, and found my printer on the floor.  I opened it up, and saw this cartridge. Now, any sensible, rational, reasonable, semi-intelligent person would look at this cartridge and think "Oh, I need to get model 564." and then go purchase it at the counter.

So I go to the ink section, and found this pack.  Now, I'm no whiz with numbers, but so far as I can tell, the numbers for these two ink cartridges match up - and when things match up, I usually take that at face value and run with it.  I purchase it at the counter (with the accompanied color cartridges as well, sold separately) and head back to the apartment.  As soon as I get back, I rip the box open and go to install the cartridge, where much to my surprise, I find that it doesn't fit!  So I double check the numbers, look back at the box, and that's when I see this on the box of the new black cartridge I just purchased.

In case you can't see it (the picture is a little blurry) it says "Not for use in HP PHOTOSMART PLUS printers", which is the printer that I have.  You have GOT to be kidding me!?  What in the world is this all about?  Who was the idiot who designed this organizational structure!  What this tells me is that although my printer uses the 564 ink cartridge, I didn't get the RIGHT ink cartridge.  

I have a really simple solution to this situation, that I personally think is quite brilliant.  If this is an ink cartridge that doesn't work with the HP Photosmart Plus printers, which actually use 564 cartridges, GIVE IT A DIFFERENT NUMBER!!!  

As if inkjet printer ink isn't expensive enough, now they've got to go and confuse the heck out of the customer base, and dupe us into purchasing ink cartridges that don't actually work for the printers that we thought we had.  I suppose one could ultimately say that this was my fault for not catching the smaller writing below the HUGE "564" that says it didn't work with my printer, but honestly, who reads the fine print anyhow?

I hope I have the receipt somewhere...

On an unrelated note, in one of my technical elective classes, I'm teaching my students how to start a blog.  I have created a new blog that I will be using explicitly for that class, and I will use it to post the videos, pictures, and whatnot of things that happen in that class.  It can be found at http://mrwoahn.wordpress.com.   I will also eventually have links from that link to my students blogs, so you can get a look into their lives.  The class has five girls and one boy, and they all expressed interest in learning about desktop publishing.  So we're starting with creating blogs for them, and then I'm going to use the blog to have them actually post the things that they create - whether they're photos, stories, pictures, artwork, presentations, etc. 

In the other period of technical elective that I teach, we have a lot more physics, science, and engineering taking place.  I'll use the blog to post videos and pictures of things that I do with them as well, however, those students won't be creating blogs.  I just don't see it as something that they'd be interested in pursuing.  The classes have a VERY different dynamic, and it's a lot of fun to work with.  

I've made the conscious decision to not show my students this blog, with the express purpose that word of its existence might spread to certain sources that I would prefer to maintain ignorant.  That would severely limit my ability to write honestly about things that happen at school, and truly - who wants that?

A Paradigm Shift

I just finished going for a run.  About the same time that I finished, there was another guy who was finishing up as well.  As soon as he got to the curb, he pulled out a cigarette, lit up, and started smoking.  Something felt amiss.

This week, I had a similar experience where afterwards, something felt amiss.  A little background first.  Almost exactly a year ago, I had just finished teaching one of my 7th grade classes, and that the lesson had gone horrendously, as they all had up to that point.  Nothing new.

As the class was leaving, one of the few students who weren't acting out, who paid attention and actually tried to participate amidst all of the madness, and turned out to be one of my stellar students that year, made a comment on his way out the door that I continued to think about for the rest of the  school year.  He said "Mr. Woahn, you deserve a better school than this."

And I truly felt that I did.  I thought about that comment over and over and over, and I honestly believed it - I thought "I'm an awesome teacher, and these students just don't care.  They will never see that... I really do deserve a better school."  And so many times throughout all the rest of the year after there would be lessons that I'd put TONS of thought and effort and preparation in to, and I just hoped that there were students that recognized that effort.  And maybe they could empathize with my situation, and realize how hard I tried.

Back to the present.  The ELA teacher quit this week, and as such, there was a substitute who has been coming in this week to cover the class until they find a full time replacement.  After school on his way out one day, he stopped by and told me about the horrible day he'd had.  He told me about how students had been talking back to him, cussing at him, throwing things at him, running around the classroom and fighting, and pretty much exhibiting standard behavior at my school.  So I told him I'd stop by the next day during my Prep Period.

The next day during my Prep Period, I arrived in his classroom, and noted that it was my little 7th graders.  They weren't doing anything horrendous, like I could imagine the 8th graders (7th graders from last year) doing, but the teacher was nonetheless having a tough time with them.  So I just walked around the classroom, helped convey instruction and get some of the students working on what the teacher had planned for them to do.

As I knelt down by the side of one of the students desk, I looked around the room at all of my students doing their various activities in class, looked up at the substitute, the complete disorganization of the classroom, and considered the events of the coming weeks.  At some point, they're going to have a new ELA teacher.  And when that teacher arrives, my my students will have to go through the new stress of starting a "new" class, getting to know a "new" teacher, and just basically start from square one.

It was at this point I recalled my experience from the last year, but this time I thought "These kids deserve a better school than this."

And truly, they do.  They're great kids, regardless of how reckless, chaotic, and hectic they may act at times.  They do the best they can in the environment they've been brought up in, and if I can help to improve that environment at all - I'll do it.