I ain't going to school with them folks.

I see in the paper today that schools in the US have never been so segregated. We know this in NYC because we have all seen it. The city created a bunch of specialized schools throughout the system that allowed middle class parents to send their kids to "good" schools. Of course the affect was to segregate the schools.

In my neighborhood there were always big hustles going on to get kids into non-zoned schools. I did it and so did many other parents. Before these specialized schools were created there was much middle class flight. Some parents left the city, some parents went to parochial schools and some parents chose private schools ($20,000/ year)

I remember a family that I was friendly with. Their boys played with my son. As soon as the oldest kid became 5 they sold their house and moved to the suburbs. This was a common New York story for those people who could afford it. This is not how you build a strong city.

What happened was the city, in order to stop white flight, allowed parents to manipulate the system and allowed schools to become increasingly segregated. The emphasis that Bloomburg placed on education was very smart. The people you want in the city are people who care about sending their kids to good schools. The problem is how to do this without creating a de facto segregated system.

My kids went to public school in New York City. I thought this was important, but I did figure out how to get my kids into the best possible schools for them. I did not want my kids in schools where no one cared about knowledge, or kids did not allow anyone to see that they were curious about the world.

The house I ran seemed to always have more white kids than the school at large. Still, they were a minority. I was always faced with the issues of tracking students. We had three cohorts and even if you did not believe in tracking the cohorts would still be tracked by the third year. They would track because one group would be taking things such as physics and math B and this would create a schedule that forced them to be together in English and social studies.

One of the things we did was to take kids that seemed to be working hard and showed curiosity and a desire to do well and move them into our honors track. We never looked at their reading or math levels. We made judgment calls about them based on who they were. What I think we were doing subconsciously is tracking kids by desire.

This was an interesting way to track because it gave you all of the good things about heterogeneous classes. The best thing I saw was good kids helping kids who were having trouble. This bred compassion and it also reinforced learning among the better students. Teaching someone else is the best way to learn.

It may be that if we change admissions standards for elite schools to account for desire than we may see these schools become more integrated. Minority kids have a real disadvantage on standardized tests. Their vocabulary is not even close to my own kids' vocabulary.

I am not sure how to test for this desire. Teacher recommendations are only good if you know the teacher. Teachers tend to recommend kids who gave them no trouble. What I think you need to find is kids who are curious. You want to find kids who have the resiliency to not know something and to work to figure it out. Give me a class full of those kids and I don't care what their color or grade level is I can do great things with them.

I have added a new link to a science teacher's blog who is at the beginning of being forced out of her school. I don't know her but the process is informative. It can happen to anyone. Asking any teacher, but particularly a science teacher to travel is such bad policy that I have no comment.

Joel Klein wants to fire me.

Last year the DoE decided to get rid of district 79 schools. They were going to close some of the programs and merge some of the programs into other schools. To do this they decided to fire all of the teachers and make them reapply for their jobs. In the process of doing this a bunch of teachers did not find new jobs. The union contract would not allow these teachers to be fired so they are now replacing per-diem substitutes in many schools. When asked about these teachers the chancellor replied that if he had his way he would fire all of these teachers.

At this point in time there are a bunch of assistant principals who do not have assignments. The new contract does not allow these APs to be fired. I know that Joel Klein's desire is that we all be fired. He can not do this at this time.

I remember reading an interview with someone from Ohio who was having his house foreclosed. He had worked in an auto factory and then the factory had closed down. He was talking about how he had done everything that was asked of him in life, worked hard, married, bought a house, had kids etc. and then the job just left him. Joel wouldn't have any sympathy for this guy. Joel would only care about the auto company being profitable.

The DoE is full of people who are not great at their jobs. I would guess that Bloomberg L.P also has a bunch of people who are not good at their jobs. The world we live in today seems to feel that these people should be cut loose. Unions are a good thing because they keep bosses from doing this.

I am not sure that this is a good way to run the world. I have fired people and pushed people out. Generally I did this to people who wanted to manipulate the system and refused to try to do good work. I had two lab assistants who complained every time I asked them to do anything and who only did the minimum all the time. These were not good workers. I do wonder what happened to them, but I do not feel sorry for them. I have also allowed people who are not good at what they do to continue working for me because they seemed to care a lot about their job. I am sure this is a weakness on my part.

I don't really get people who don't try. It may be that in some cases they are just in the wrong place or working for the wrong person.

Because I got in trouble when I went to apply for a new certificate to become an AP organization my application was sent to investigation. The reason I applied for the APO license is that the majority of jobs available call for this license. I did this in July and I have not heard anything from the DoE. In other words the DoE wants to fire me because I can not find a job on my own, but the DoE has made it impossible for me to find a job on my own. This is a real catch 65.

Of course I let the union know about this right away. Of course the union did nothing as usual. I think I don't understand what they are supposed to do.

My Summer

Yesterday I put a picture on my page. This shot was taken in Canada from a moving car. It is one of the few good pictures I took this summer. I went to upper Michigan and I went Cleveland and Virgina. I just didn't seem to do as much good photography as I did last year. I have been wondering why.

Last year I was in the west and the west is always inspiring. I don't think this totally explains my lack of output. I think that part of my problem was not going off by myself. Usually I get up early and go out by myself. This year all of my vacation time was with people. I did not have very much time by myself.

I'm reading the biography of Teddy Roosevelt. He was a social guy. He had to be to become president. Roosevelt also owned a ranch in North Dakota and he spent months alone at this ranch, particularly after his first wife died. As I was reading this I realized that I needed some of this. I think spending 3 months a year in the Dakota's is not something I need. When I go to Las Vegas I usually get up at 7 and R gets up at 11. this gives me 4 hours by myself. This gives me a great opportunity to wander around take picture or just do nothing.

I am good at doing nothing by myself when I am home, but somehow this does not lead to creativity. I may actually be grasping at straws but this summer was not very creative for me and I want to figure out how to change this.

I went to Greenwood Cemetery yesterday to visit Alice Roosevelt's grave. I found the family plot but I could not read most of the head stones. This very rich, very powerful family had a modest plot and used stone that did not survive even 100 years. I wandered around with my camera and saw very few good photo opportunities.

Blue Wednesday

I have been sitting in a school for the past few days. Because I am an AP I started on Monday. I have helped fix the office and get things working, but there is really nothing serious I can do because I am here only because no one knows where I should be. I could be gone tomorrow.

This has left me a little down but then I started thinking about all the people I left in the rubber room. I can not imagine what it would be like if I was a teacher sitting at home today knowing that tomorrow I would be going back to that awful place. When you first go there you are in shock and usually surprised so you have not had time to think about it. The first few weeks you are involved in trying to figure out how to get out of there. It is only latter that the depression sets in. By that point you are getting used to it. People can get used to anything. If you ever read "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" you can see how someone can adjust.

If I had all of the summer off, and you was able to lead my life with dignity and now it is Wednesday and I know tomorrow I will be once again thrown into that awful place I am not sure what I would feel like. I suppose I would start feeling bad at least a week ahead of Thursday. I know I did not have a great weekend mentally knowing that I was in limbo.

If any of my fellow prisoners are reading this I want to say that I feel for you. I am not sure if you can ever really recover from last year. I do not feel that this type of trial makes you a better person. I do hope that you will find the strength to survive.

One of the participants in the Abu Ghraib jail just finished his trial. He was acquitted of impropriety at the jail, but he was found guilty of talking about it. In other words you can torture prisoners contrary to the Geneva Convention but don't talk about it. An important message to get out to the troops. We wouldn't want someone to talk and possibly blame the generals for this stuff.

SHH! It's a secret

The Daily News has run a series of articles about a judge in the Bronx named Marian Shelton. Judge Shelton is being investigated for misconduct. The judge took the unusual step of publicizing the charges against her. I am sure that this is driving a lot of people crazy. This all sounds familiar.

The judge is probably not a saint. It sounds like she made some statements that were not always well thought out. I am sure she is not alone in this. As you read the case it does become apparent that people are after her. Her strategy is partially to go public with the charges. Exactly what I did.

The federal government uses national security as an excuse for secrecy all of the time. What is interesting is that every time they lose a freedom of information suit it is apparent that most of the secrets the government keeps are designed to cover up the governments failings and have very little to do with national security.

I keep asking myself if this type of behavior is unique to government or if it exist in all large industries. Con Ed wants to send their own inspectors to look at the steam pipe explosion site. Are they there looking for the truth or are they there to cover up the truth, particularly if the truth is not favorable to Con Ed.

There was a funny report out of London that 40% of married women have lied to their husbands about how much an article of clothing cost. This is a funny story, but it may expose a basic human trait to spin the truth.

Husbands and wives can deal with each other as they see fit. Governments and corporations need to constantly resist the desire to classify actions as secrets. When they give in to this desire they are badly serving society and often badly serving themselves. Mattel may try to keep the lead paint issue secret, but they know that if it gets out they can risk the whole business. Secrecy has a price for them that may be greater than honesty. This is not true of government or public utilities. It is important that we hold officials accountable. Honesty and openness really do matter.

Carl Rove

I see that Carl Rove has resigned. I guess that Carl was the master at telling lies and therefore convincing a proportion of the population that the lies were true. I think something like 40% of America still thinks that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. I suppose in some small way that this happened to me. The principal was able to file charges against me that were lies. The lies were thrown out of court, but a certain percentage of the population believe them and never let go of their belief.

I was reminded of this recently when someone commented on my blog about me being investigated for fixing Regents grades. This never happened, but I suppose it is the lie that matters not the truth. I sometimes feel that I am a boy scout when it comes to things like changing grades or lying about other people. I find it hard to even imagine doing this. I am always shocked when I hear of others doing things like this. It just seems like something you should not do. It would never even think of changing a Regents grade. I suppose I talk about grades because I would rather change the system than change a student's grade.

My argument with grades is with the attempt to make them precise. Regents' grades are given in discreet numerical units. The problem is that people see this as an accurate measure of a student's abilities. Even the people designing the test would not claim that this was so. I doubt if these grades are repeatable closer than 5 or 10 points. In other words if you gave a student 2 chemistry Regents would they score the exact same score or would they just get in the same range.

If I get on a scale this morning and I weigh myself I will get a clear number. If I go to the doctor an hour from now and weigh myself again I will probably get the same number (assuming the two scales are working). This happens because scales are scientific instruments capable of accurately measuring a persons weight. Regents do not work that way and never will. Regents only give you a range. (For my science readers I realize that the two scales will never read exactly the same number. Even scales have errors)

When we tell a student they received a 72 on a regents we seem to be making a statement that is not true. There is probably no difference between a 72 and a 77. We need to stop pretending that teaching is an exact science. This is why I feel that we should go to a system of letter grades. It will change the way we think about kids intellectual abilities. We should be grouping kids into much broader categories.

Teachers have always used class participation as a factor in grading. This is a huge factor in creating grade inaccuracy. If we are making a statement about a kids ability to succeed in life or to do something brilliant you can find that almost all research shows that we consistently miss the most brilliant students. This happens partially because of this class participation component. Class participation usually means who fits the teachers model of a good student. This model rarely has anything to do with what really brilliant kids do.

The bottom line is have grades helped students realize what their abilities are or have they hurt kids by either giving them a false sense of how good they are or by convincing them that they are failures when they are not.

The image on the top was taken with a camera I just built. The camera takes stereo digital images. If you want to see it in stereo and you look at it while crossing your eyes so that your right eye looks at the left image and your left eye the right image you will see it in 3-D.

Grade Change - Part 2

The second issue in the August first Times’ article was the fact that the principal had given the student a second math test which she passed and then changed the grade to allow the student to graduate. The article quoted the mother as saying something about not being able to afford a second prom. The affect was to trivialize the real concerns that many parent feel about their children’s educations. I think this was a cheap shot.

If you look at this kid you can see that she spent 5 years in high school. Her attendance seemed to have been spotty, but she did stay with it even after her cohort had graduated. The kid clearly had problems in math. This is too bad. We should make sure that kids leave high school with enough math skills to survive. I see people in stores all the time getting into arguments with cashiers because they can’t follow what is happening and they feel cheated. This is a sad way to lead your life. You are either being cheated or you think you are being cheated.

A kid who has failed many courses and has taken five years to finish high school is not going to get into Harvard, they are not going to become doctors or pilots or pharmacists. They may work in a restaurant, or in a grocery store. When we give them a high school diploma signed by the principal and bearing the seal of the New York State Board of Regents we are not saying anything more than that they have survived high school. This is an achievement, but it is not that strong of a statement about their intellectual ability. Any college or employer is going to ask how they did in high school. This girl’s transcript is not going to say that she did well.

When we refuse to give a kid like this a diploma we are being arrogant about what high school is. We are putting a barrier in her way to starting her life that has no meaning. Why would we want to do this? Are we really afraid that someone will misinterpret this document? Do we think that some employer will call us up and yell at us for giving a girl a high school diploma even though she is not very good at algebra? The world understands what a high school diploma is worth. It says something about a kid’s ability not to give up. This is really all it says.

I love teaching high school because I can facilitate the transition of a kid from lost to having a direction. It is the direction that is the most important thing. I send the kids out into the world with the statement that this kid does not give up. When they get their first job they will impress their boss or not. If they go to college they will thrive or not. They will start creating the transcript of their life. This will be more important than the high school diploma. High school can be very important, not the diploma. Give the kid a break, let her get on with her life. Mr. Math Teacher, you were being a jerk.

I guess the point is to not think of grades as an objective measurement of students, they are not, but to think of them as a statement about the student’s readiness to move on. It would be great if we could personally testify to each student’s abilities like they do in elite private schools. I doubt if that type of grading will ever be practical in a large urban school system.

On a personal note; I received a 98 on my Algebra Regents because I did not check a problem even though the directions said to show the work and show that I had checked my work. I did not forget to check my work. I though it was stupid to check it. The problem was easy and I knew I had gotten it correct. Checking it would have involved adding 3 numbers together backwards from the way I had done it in the original problem. I thought this was stupid and chose not to do it.