I need to find out more about ProComp, the merit-pay plan. But a mere $150 or so a month after taxes for teaching in quote-unquote ‘high poverty schools’ (warning, code words!) is pretty sad.

‘Denver teachers voted 3-1 to approve a three-year contract with the Denver Public Schools Tuesday. “It was the best deal we could get for our members,” said Kim Ursetta, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association of the contract. … The vote was 77.5 percent to accept the agreement and 22.5 percent to reject it. A total of 1,877 votes were cast. The DPS board has already approved the contract, which is the first multiple-year deal in 20 years. It goes into effect immediately and runs through Aug. 31, 2011. Under its provisions, all teachers will get a cost of living increase of 3 percent, and in each of the next two years, salary will increase by an amount equal to the Consumer Price Index plus .25 percent.
‘… If DPS is able to merge its retirement system with the state, another increase of .4 percent above the index will be added. The new agreement calls for teachers getting more time for training and planning with five “late start” days in 2008-2009. If DPS completes its retirement merger before June 30, 2009, teachers will get an extra school day in 2010-2011. The contract also provides for some changes to ProComp, Denver’s groundbreaking pay-for-performance plan. Starting in 2008-2009, bonuses such as teaching in high poverty schools will be increased to $2,345 each year.’
—Rocky Mountain News

An immediate three percent at my current salary here in California is about $100 a month … before taxes. In other words, a tank of gas. Whoop-de-doop.

Of course, even that would actually be great. We’ve been working without a contract since June and go to fact-finding in October. It’s going to be a rough fall. So even a couple hundred extra sounds good to us in PUSD.

My new digs at the elementary school are really nice and I’m very happy with the room (and everything else). The staff is wonderful, the administration/office is great, and the atmosphere is a breath of fresh air.
I’ve spent a week working on the room. I was delayed getting started a day, when a broken pipe [...]

The Big Read is ‘an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.’
The Big Read ‘answers a big need. Reading at Risk: A [...]

‘The public schools have always been the friends of the people, and no other system has ever accomplished the good that they have. The different legislatures in the several states have long since decided this, in establishing public schools, that the rich and the poor, side by side, might attend, and receive the self-same instruction, [...]

I stumbled across Eric Zorn’s «50 things learned in 50 years» via «MetaFilter» and I may try to transmit some of the more important lessons to my students soon. My favorites:

‘2. Promptness shows respect.
3. You can’t avoid offending people from time to time. When you don’t mean it, apologize. When you do mean it, accept [...]

The Boston Globe «weighs in» on closing the achievement gap between socioeconomic haves and have-nots. Their conclusion:

‘“Teach everything” should be a motto: academics, time management, study skills, and the value of a positive attitude. Instead of laboring for hours over opaque material, students should be trained to ask for help early and often. … Achievement [...]

I accepted a job today in a district a couple of cities away. It came out of the blue, all of a sudden. Starting 21-Aug, I’ll be a sixth grade math and science teacher at a junior high school. It’s an interesting, unique, and potentially very beneficial opportunity, and I’m grateful to have a chance [...]

In a post titled, «Time for Regime Change in Education», Dan Brown says there is a single question to be asked:

‘A single question cuts to the heart of America’s education dilemma:
’1. spend all of their class time on only reading and math test preparation?
’2. study a balanced diet of subjects including reading, writing, math, science, [...]

Janet Ewell, a high school teacher in Orange County, wrote a wonderful opinion piece called «Test-Takers, Not Students» in the L.A. Times on May 26. I almost missed it. It certainly deserves wider exposure:

Test madness and centralized curriculum control squeeze creativity out of the classroom
‘It is popular to blame the federal No Child Left Behind [...]

I love «this letter» in the Rocky Mountain News Letters to the Editor section:

‘Teachers not well-paid
‘Where does Betsy Hart get her information? In her column of Dec. 11, “This year, I’ll be celebrating a low- key Christmas,” she stated, “I really like my kids’ teachers, but they are well-compensated and I’m just not going to [...]