Teachers want to teach: A rant and Giveaway

I was recently given the opportunity to read Mission Possible: How the Secrets of the Success Academies Can Work in Any School by Eva Moskowitz and Arin Lavinia.  Moskowitz and Lavinia are the founder and literacy curriculum designer of the Success Academies, a group of very successful charter schools in New York City.  In this book, they detail the various core principles that have led to outstanding results for their students, many of whom come from the most disadvantaged neighborhoods in New York, and explain how those same key principles could be applied more widely to public schools throughout the country.  This is not, however, simply a theoretical account of these principles.  Woven throughout the book, and even as videos on an included CD, are sample lessons that illustrate how actual teachers implement these key principles with their young students.


Along with speed, rigor, a commitment to reading and writing, and an expectation of success, perhaps the most significant of the principles with guide the Success Academy is a focus on the preparation and engagement of the adults in the school: the teachers and administrators.  The Success Academies dedicate huge amounts of resources to inservices, practice, mentorship and other programs dedicated to the constant and immediate improvement of their teachers.


How different this is from what I remember when I started teaching.  I was fortunate enough to work in a district that had a strong staff development program for new teachers, but what this meant is that I had one week of extra workshops and three extra non-evaluative "coaching" observations every year.  In the Success Academies, teachers - both new and old - are observed almost daily and have constant access to training throughout the year.


If this were executed widely?  I think it would make all the difference in the world.


Teaching is inherently such a solo occupation.  It doesn't seem  like teachers work alone because they are constantly with other people - but those other people are small people, not colleagues.  While some (but not all!) teachers have opportunities to meet with and plan with other teachers in the same subject area or grade level team, most days it is a solo performance.  We graduate from school and our thrown in a room, where we get to be Queen of the castle.  Or where we get lost.


When I was student teaching, my cooperating teacher's advice on how to deal with bureaucracy and administrators was "Close the door and do the right thing."  And I wanted to.  I tried to.  I think - hope - that most of the time I did.


But really?  That's crap.  I shouldn't have had to.  I shouldn't have been on my own to figure out what the right thing to do was.  The administrators shouldn't have been adversaries.


And honestly, for veteran teachers, the situation is at least as bad.  New teachers usually have mentors now, and get extra check ins from their superiors.  They come in with fresh ideas from school - some of which work, some of which don't.  Veteran teachers?  Get almost nothing.  Their reward for doing their job well is to get left alone.


Even for the best teachers, this really isn't a gift.


In other occupations, where you work daily with others and their work depends on your work, people notice when you start struggling.  If the methods change, you know because you see it.  In teaching, if what you're doing stops working, you're kind of on your own to figure out what to do instead.


There's a huge discussion in this country now about teacher quality and its effect on student outcomes.  In many ways I think it's valid.  I've seen the research and I believe it.  Teacher quality is THE most important criterion in student improvement.  But I think the discussion misses one key point.


Most teachers? Really want to do well.


I hope with all my heart that our schools do learn this lesson, soon.


I have a copy of this book to give away!!


In order to enter, leave me a comment on this post with your point of view on what teachers need to be successful.  It doesn't matter if you're a teacher, a parent, or just a person who went to school.  Your voice matters.


For an extra entry, tweet about this giveaway and leave me a comment with the link. 


I will choose a winner on Wednesday August 8.  Please make sure if there isn't a link to your email in your blogger profile that you leave it for me, or else how on Earth can I get you this book??


If you have more opinions about this issue, Eva would love to talk to you.  You can find her on twitter or her facebook page.


Disclosure:  This is a sponsored post.  I received a free copy of this book and was compensated for writing about it.  All opinions - rants and all - are my own.

Ask Story's money: What order to pay things off

Jenny from Tranquilamama sent me this question.

We have two credit cards. The first card is still open & we have a balance of $10,443.93 at an APR of 10.99%. The minimum payment is $199.00. 

The second card is closed to preserve the APR at a fixed rate of 5.74%. The balance is $4262.27 and the minimum payment is $64.00. 

So which one do we pay off first?

The age old question: do you pay off the loan with the lower balance or the higher interest rate?  It's a tricky one to answer, but I'm going to do my best.


The strict mathematical answer would be, always pay off the one with the higher interest rate first.  In the end, you will pay a lot less money in interest by doing that.  In theory, if you are going to be strict and keep your belts tight until you are finished paying off all your loans, you will be completely debt free sooner this way too because with less interest your payments will go further.


Real life isn't quite that simple, though.


Higher interest


Jenny has an extra $200 or so every month to put towards her debt repayments.  If she puts that money towards her higher interest loan, and then rolls the entire payment to the smaller loan once it's paid off, she is going to be finished paying off the debt in a little less time.


By my rough calculations, doing it this way will take her 80 months.  Starting with the smaller loan would take 81 months.


So it's a 1 month difference.  That's not very inspiring.


If you think about it, though - and I tried to get exact numbers, but unfortunately I don't have the time, energy or resources for that much math right now - the entire difference would come from a difference in interest.  That means, if we're talking about a total of $500 a month in payments, starting with the higher interest loan would save Jenny $500 in interest.  That's not a small amount of money.


Smallest loan


The argument for paying off the smaller loan first takes a different stance.  This argument is one that is emotional instead of logical.  


If you pay off the smallest loan first, then you get wins sooner.


If Jenny puts her entire extra payment towards her smaller loan, she can get that loan paid off in under 2 years.  This will give her a huge sense of success, and help her to focus on the larger loan.  If she did it the other way, it would take her most of the 7 years she was paying before she noticed any change at all.  It's hard to keep the faith when you aren't seeing any difference.


Also, paying off the small loan faster provides increased security in the way of cash flow.  While ideally, you will will take the entire payment from the smaller loan and put it on the bigger loan, not having that payment every month is really important should you be met with an emergency.  In theory, this means you can keep less in your cash reserve too, thus having more to pay towards your loans.


The verdict


So, my very official answer is, it depends.  If you are very logical and mathematical, and trust yourself to keep at it, you really will do a little better by starting with the higher interest loan.  In the real world, however, most people will do better by starting with the smallest loan.  If the difference in interest were larger, the psychological boost might not be worth it, but really they are very close.


Also, hopefully seeing the progress will motivate you to put even more money towards your credit cards, paying it off even faster.  The faster you pay it off, the less the interest rate matters at all.


As a final thought, either way you choose to do it is fine as long as you DO IT.  Proud of you, Jenny, and the rest of you dear readers, for making the decision to do this.  You are doing great.




Got questions?  Please?  Leave them in the comments or tweet or email them to me, and I'd be glad to answer them!

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Ask story's money: Budgeting for variable expenses

My first question for Ask Story's Money comes from my good friend Elizabeth who blogs at She Likes Stripes:

I definitely still need help with budgeting, like how do you know what your monthly gas budget is? or groceries? Coming as someone who has no budget set right now (and I suppose that's probably also due to the fact that i'm coming off of 4 years of living alone) ... how do you set those numbers when you're pretty sure you already spend too much? ... Or how do you allow yourself little treats (like new shoes here and there, things for fun) amid trying to be super frugal because you know you have big things to save up for?

The first step to budgeting for variable expenses like this is to know how much you already spend. There are various software and online solutions for this, but for me the easiest way is just to sit down with your credit card or bank statements and start adding. Depending on how much time and patience you have, you can do one month or do three months and average them.

Odds are, the first time you do this exercise, you will be a little horrified. Most people have no idea where their money is going.

So how do you figure out how much you "should" be spending?

1. You can look at the national averages or recommended percentages for grocery budgets. Unfortunately I think this is probably the least useful
way to do this because there are so many variables at play.

2. You can figure out how much you can actually afford to spend. This requires you to really sit down and make a full household budget, listing all your regular expenses and your income. If you are currently spending more than you can actually afford to in a sustainable way, this is crucial.

3. You can set incremental goals. For the most part, I think this is where most people should be. Try to gradually reduce your grocery spending a little bit every month until it reaches a point at which you feel more comfortable.

How to actually reduce this? Is a much bigger question and one for another day.

Have a question? Leave it in the comments or send me an email.