Len Lipkin

Make Every School a Charter?

Mary Beth Hertz (a.k.a. mbteach on Twitter) over on the Philly Teacher blog recently posted a very thought provoking article–A New Model for School Reform: Could it Work?. With all the talk of Charters and Renaissance schools lately, it was great to read such a well thought out and well articulated model of school reform. Her idea in a nutshell–do away with catchments and let every...

Len Lipkin

Philly Teachers Need Anger Management?

I started this blog just before the new contract was signed with the Philadelphia teacher’s union.  At the time, I was supportive of the contract and the innovative/proactive changes to the traditional structure of the contract.  It also seemed like public and media reaction was generally positive. Now that the new contract is off of the front pages, however, there is a vocal group of teachers who...

Len Lipkin

Reactions to the New Philadelphia Teachers Contract

I posted before that I feel positive about the contract from what I had heard at that point but that I was interested to hear what the experts had to say.  Here are some more reactions from local media sources. Valerie Russ, The Daily News, 1/23/2010, Teachers, school district approve contract Dale Mezzacappa, The Notebook, 1/23/2010, AFT president: New contract a breakthrough Ron Whitehorne, The...