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For the first time since the city imposed a hiring freeze two years ago, the number of teachers entering the classroom from alternative certification programs has risen.

While some senior teachers worry about finding positions, two prominent organizations, Teach For America and New York City’s Teaching Fellows, are contributing hundreds of new teachers to the city’s teaching force. The organizations estimate that they will bring about 800 new teachers into classrooms this fall.

That would be 25 percent more than last year, when the groups brought on just under 650 new teachers, about 2,000 less than in 2006.

The dropoff began in 2009, when the Department of Education enacted restrictions limiting most hiring to teachers who were already in the system. The policy severely curtailed recruitment plans for TFA and Teaching Fellows and in a matter of two years, both were producing just a few hundred teachers per year. Most of those teachers worked in shortage areas, such as science and special education.

Now, as the city has eased some longstanding hiring restrictions in new subjects, those numbers are inching back up in response to demand. (more…)

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and UFT President Michael Mulgrew at the DOE's new teacher orientation today.

An as-yet-unhired Teaching Fellow ambushed Schools Chancellor Joel Klein today, charging that it is unfair for the city to recruit new teachers and then deny them jobs.

Arah Lewis, a 28-year-old new teacher, stopped Klein as the chancellor left LaGuardia High School this morning after speaking at the city’s annual new teacher orientation. Lewis was hired this spring to join the city’s Teaching Fellows program, but then the city closed its teaching ranks to most new hires in May.

“To be here and to hear you speak is wonderful,” she told Klein. “But it’s also kind of a slap in the face.”

Lewis explained that she had found a middle school in the Bronx, MS 337, whose principal wanted to hire her as a math teacher. But the principal, Andrea Cyprys, can’t offer the position until the hiring freeze is lifted, something Klein warned recently isn’t likely to happen any time soon.

On the verge of tears and surrounded by other new teachers, Lewis protested to Klein that her situation is unfair.

“I don’t know an organization that would go out and recruit people and expect them to change their lives and then say you can’t work here,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense.” (more…)

Teach for America, the program that places new teachers in hard-to-staff public schools, is planning to send nearly a third of its new New York City teachers to charter schools this fall, up from just 3% in 2005, internal TFA projections show.

The shift to charter schools insulates the latest batch of Teach For America teachers from a new-teacher hiring freeze the city announced earlier this month. Charter schools are publicly funded but privately operated, so they aren’t subject to the freeze and can hire any certified teacher, whether she is already in the Department of Education system or not.

The move follows a downsizing in Teach For America’s pool to about 300 from 500 teachers last year. The city’s dismal budget picture led to the retraction. (more…)

With the economy in the shape it is, some people are considering pursuing teaching as a “fallback career.” But the reality is that the very same economy means that there are relatively few jobs for teachers this year. Looking at budget cuts and expecting fewer people to leave, many districts, including New York City, are cutting down on hiring.

The city’s Teaching Fellows program, the most prominent route into the classroom for career changers, is planning to accept significantly fewer applicants. I heard from one friend who got an acceptance last week, but far fewer applicants are being accepted than in past years. Two GothamSchools readers reported in the comments section of a post from January that their Teaching Fellows application statuses were finally updated last week: One was rejected, and the other was deferred even longer, until the city’s budget situation becomes clearer.

Still, the Department of Education has extended employment offers to some applicants it considers likely to be particularly successful in shortage areas such as math and English, through a new initiative called TRQ Select. (TRQ is the acronym for the Office of Teacher Recruitment and Quality.) This week, the DOE’s hiring office is using its Twitter feed to profile some of those new teachers in under 140 characters. Here’s an example: “Pia, ESL Teacher- Fordham grad, taught English in Haiti and Panama, served in Peace Corps in Morocco.”

Here are some key pieces of back-to-back interviews Randi Weingarten and Joel Klein gave to Diana Williams at Channel 7 yesterday.

Weingarten said that, rather than laying off teachers, the city should offer buyouts to teachers on the brink of retirement and should put a freeze on hiring young teachers from Teach For America and The New Teacher Project.

She said:

“Take all those signs down – the great beautiful signs…Just stop that stuff. If we’re serious that there’s a $1.5 billion deficit, there’s a hiring freeze.”

Klein’s response, when he came on later in the program:

“We have almost $100m of teachers who could not find a job, and those are teachers we ought to prioritize if there are in fact going to be layoffs. But, no, let’s not use great, talented, excited young new people to come into the system. Those are the people that our kids want, those are the people we need to go find.”

UPDATE: Edwize has video of the interviews here.

What does NBA player Tim Duncan have to do with teaching? It's all about the poker face, says Jose Vilson.

The start of school is fast-approaching, and teachers around the “edusphere” are offering advice to newbies.

Here in NYC, Jose Vilson writes a sharp, good-humored letter to new Teaching Fellows, advising them to be humble, reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, observe other teachers, keep emotions in check, and stay out of school politics.

Coach Brown, starting his eighth year in California, says it’s all about doing what’s best for kids, and this takes hard work, preparation, finding your own style of teaching, and knowing how to pick your battles. Don’t waste your students’ time, he warns:

Students are some of the best judges of good teaching that exist. 95% of all students actually want to learn. They tell you in means that are not typical but will tell you immediately if you are doing it “wrong”. …However, students will always have a positive response to work they find meaningful.

Jamie Huston, a high school literature teacher in Las Vegas, offers 50 Things New Teachers Need to Know. (more…)

The PS 22 Chorus performing last year at the Tribute WTC Museum. Courtesy of PS 22 Chorus

“A week from tomorrow, the games begin,” Chancellor Joel Klein told an audience of a few hundred teachers at a welcome event this morning at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Speaking of New York City students as “my kids,” Klein encouraged teachers to “teach them well and they will do well on these exams.”

In addition to speeches by Klein, UFT Secretary Michael Mendel, Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, and others, the event featured performances by city students, including the music of the PS 22 chorus from Staten Island, double dutch by Stan’s Pepper Steppers, and foxtrot, swing, and mambo by the Dancing Classrooms Youth Dance Company.

Pointing to the accomplishments of his fifth grade choristers, music teacher and chorus director Gregg Breinberg told the audience, “I know many of you are entering the profession, and I just want to tell you — reach, reach, reach.” Other speakers echoed that message of high expectations for students — and for oneself as a teacher.

“Quite frankly, we don’t have room for so-so teachers, we don’t have room for that mediocrity in our schools,” Deputy Chancellor Marcia Lyles said. She recalled the way her sixth grade teacher made each child feel like her favorite. Lyles honored 33 teachers chosen for the Gotham Graduates Give Back Award, a $1,000 prize given to select teachers who graduated from New York City public schools. (more…)