Back to School

, and Laura Hampson

WELLINGTON — Clutching supply lists with specifications rivaling a military defense contract and clamoring for dress code-approved clothing, parents are using the statewide sales tax holiday to stretch their back-to-school dollar.

Today is the second day of tax-free shopping for office supplies that cost $10 or less. Clothes, books and shoes at $50 or less are also tax-free until midnight Sunday. The tax break was put on hold for two years because of budget constraints, but some retailers pushed hard to have it return this year.

Parents shopping for their children Friday said that while the break on the 6.5 percent tax is helpful, discounts offered by retailers are often better deals.

First offered in 1998, the holiday has lasted as many as 10 days. It was widely popular among consumers and retailers, who said it helped spur sales and save shoppers money.

“When a tax-free holiday happens, it can be like a weekend near Christmas. It can be that busy,” said Frank Wilison, JCPenney store manager at The Mall at Wellington Green. He said the store beefs up its uniform selection for tax holidays.

Michelle Machazek of West Palm Beach said she waited until this weekend to buy uniforms at JC­Penney for her son, 10-year-old Joseph Rex. She said that while the tax break helps, she also waited for the deep sales stores offer just before school starts.

Looking for dress code-approved shorts at the store, Christine Kelly of Lake Worth and her daughter, Hannah, 12, braved the crowd Friday. She said she waited until the tax break to buy clothes and shoes. “It’s a great deal to wait. Unfortunately you’re stuck in line, but patience is a virtue,” Kelly said.

Melisa Dowling of Lake Worth said her friends didn’t want to shop during the tax holiday because of crowds. She said she went to the mall anyway for the tax break and the sales. However, the holiday doesn’t entice her to buy more than usual for her son Logan, 4, and daughter Madison, 8, she said.

Prices are a little cheaper during the tax-free weekend, said Rhonda DeCastro of Boca Raton, who waited until Friday to buy clothes for her stepdaughter, Alexandra, 12. De­Castro said the savings don’t add up to much for supplies, but it does make a big difference on clothes.

Roxanna Rossi of Royal Palm Beach said she would spend a couple of hundred dollars on gear for her three children. While shopping at Office Depot in Royal Palm Beach on Friday, she said her biggest purchase would be graphing calculators for higher-level math. They cost about $100 but are not tax-free, since the holiday is for office supplies that are $10 or less.

Angela Christian of The Acreage said the tax holiday would be better if it were longer because often middle and high school students do not know what they need until classes start. She bought supplies she knew her three children would need at Target in Royal Palm Beach on Friday, but said she’d have to come back.

The Hudson City School District will begin on-line payment of student fees in the fall of 2011. The original plan included piloting the program this year with “General Fees” only; however, additional development work and training is needed to ensure success. The district will instead begin a pilot program in the second semester of this year with a small number of fee-based programs. It is anticipated that starting in the fall of 2011 most student fees will be payable on-line.

A couple of days ago NCES released a new report on teacher attrition and mobility. Among many interesting findings, the report shows a 20-year trend—the percent of public school teachers leaving the teaching profession is steadily rising. The report, which is based on the 2008-09 Teacher Follow-Up Survey, doesn’t go into the reasons behind this trend. But thanks to some of the recent debates here on Public School Insights, I wondered how it related to the average age of our public school teachers. It could be due to the aging of the workforce—the number of teachers retiring. Or maybe the young, TFA-type teachers—in the profession for two years and then out—are playing a role.

So I went back to an earlier version of the survey, the May 1994 report based on the 1991-92 Teacher Follow-Up Survey. Of the six such surveys over the last 20 or so years, this one showed the lowest percent of teachers leaving the profession—5.1% that year (compared to 8.0% in the most recent survey, which was down from 8.4% in 2004-05).

What did I learn? Only about 28% of teachers who left the profession in 2009 did so because they retired, compared to about 33% in 1992. And about 9% of teachers under the age of 30 left the profession, about the same as in 1992.

So it’s not that more teachers are retiring—actually, proportionally fewer are. And it’s not that the young guns who commit for two years are leaving (though the percentage of teachers with 1-3 years experience leaving did increase).

Instead, the percent of teachers age 30-39 who left the profession doubled. The percent of 40-49 year-olds leaving the profession nearly doubled. And the percent of teachers leaving with 4-9 years experience increased nearly 50%.

Not what I had initially predicted. But not necessarily surprising. More teachers may be hitting their 30s and thinking, “Is there something better out there?”

And what happens after that? How do former teachers compare their new jobs to teaching? The survey didn’t ask this question in 1992, but in 2009, teaching didn’t show well. More than 56% of former teachers believe their new job gives them a greater ability to balance their personal life and work than teaching did (and nearly 34% said that it was neither better nor worse in this regard). Over 52% believe it allows more autonomy or control over their work (and over 30% say that it is neither better nor worse). And even in areas we know are important to young teachers, such as opportunities for learning from colleagues, teaching does not come out ahead—40.8% think it is better in their current position and nearly 40% it is no better or worse.

Of course, this is a select audience—those who left teaching to work in another job are likely to be less satisfied with teaching than those who remain. And the report does not indicate the effectiveness of the teachers who leave for another job—are they the most effective? The least?

Regardless, it’s worth addressing issues such as work/life balance, autonomy and collaboration in teaching. If these trends are any indication of what’s to come, we need to make sure that the teaching profession can compete for our strongest teachers.

* Hat tip to Linda Perlstein

Marc Freeman

Stephen Cochran says he did his homework before deciding to teach in Palm Beach County this year: The 20-year veteran math teacher from the San Francisco Bay area scoured websites to read articles about the curriculum controversy that disrupted the school system.

“I feel like I’m coming in right after the hurricane has been cleared up,” said Cochran, who relocated to South Florida and was recently hired to teach at Spanish River High in Boca Raton. “I imagine if I started last year I would have been questioning myself the whole way. Now the storm has passed.”

For about 400 new county teachers, upbeat orientation activities on Monday included suggestions from recent award-winning teachers, and talk of “new beginnings” both for these educators and the district. Classes start on Aug. 17.

Yet the recruits arrive at a time when the county Classroom Teachers Association is at war with the school district over money for salaries – there have been no raises for two years. In additions, educators and parents remain bitter over last year’s botched academic initiatives that forced teachers to follow scripted lessons and testing schedules.

But in a cheery address in the auditorium of Santaluces High School, union President Robert Dow – appearing robust from his recent cancer recovery – declared, “teaching is the best job in the world.”

Schools Superintendent Art Johnson used a video graphic to show the new teachers that the district has received an A rating from the state for the past six years.

“You are joining a very successful team,” he said . He praised the system’s more than 12,000 teachers for the ranking that is the best for urban districts in Florida.

What a week. My son was married a week ago. I picked him and his bride up from their honeymoon last night. In between I took a trip to Texas for a Microsoft conference and celebrated my birthday while away. At least my bride was with me and I was able to meet up with my brother and sister in law who live in Texas. But a crazy week. I still managed to collect a few good links though. And if you didn’t see it I listed my 10 Most Popular Posts June and July 2010.

This (Visually-Impaired Student Solves Accessibility Challenge, Becomes an Entrepreneur ) is a great post by Cameron Evans (Microsoft CTO for Education) about David Hayden and Team Note-Taker who won the Tablet part of the Imagine Cup this year. Great story about someone taking charge of their own problems. Speaking of accessability, the Microsoft Accessibility web site has been rebuilt and reopened.  They want everyone to know that accessible design can be beautiful. This is the first stop you should make if you have differently able students you want to help or if you want to teach students about accessible design.

From Jean-Luc David (@jldavid) and others I found links to Bill Gates – In 5 Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web. I’m skeptical. There are too many people problems to work out. Plus I think that a lot of the best learning comes from people actually being together.

Speaking of differently able people, @iRobotSPARK, lead me to this article called Robot Speaks the Language of Kids. Robots are being built and programmed to work with autistics students. Yet another example of computer science and engineering making a difference in the world.

From @MSTechStudent (follow them on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Microsoft)  If you need assistance in creating amazing games, here’s a XNA Game Studio 4.0 CTP & Education Roadmap.

Cy Khormaee recently blogged about high school computer science teacher Pat Yongpradit being selected to participate in the 2010 Microsoft Worldwide Innovative Education Forum in South Africa!

Related to that my new manager, Bob Familiar (@bobfamiliar) wrote about the Innovative Education program in the US at a post titled Exceptional Teachers Recognized at the Microsoft 2010 U.S. Innovative Education Forum

Oh and Tara Walker from the US Academic team has started blogging again. Drop by Tara’s blog and see what she is sharing.