Kids and teachers at the Hurley School in Boston bring you this fun video. Strap on your dancin’ shoes and sharpen your #2s! It’s MCAS time!
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Brookline, MA: Parking ticket APR 928%. And you thought your VISA was bad. June 21, 2011
The big banks, and in this case the rich Boston burbs, know that we are too weak to unionize; we’re too scattered and separated from one another to fight against their fees. By charging millions of people a few dollars at a time, they get their fees without causing too big an uproar. We’re the path of least resistance between the big corporations and our money that they want for themselves, and the robbery will continue until the wrong person gets charged an amount that finally tips the pissed-off-meter. When will that be? I’m already pissed off and am waiting for you.
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Cambridge, Massachusetts charges an APR of 373.00% on unpaid parking tickets and Brookline an APR of 928.00%. And you thought your credit card was bad.
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I was distracted, sure. But I’m aware now. In September, 2010, en expired meter parking ticket for $25 landed on my dashboard in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. It was annoying, but I gladly accepted my car’s fate. For hours I had been working with Harvard’s Committee for the Use of Human Subjects Director to iron out the kinks in my thesis proposal’s CUHS application. By the time I got out of the meeting, I had renewed faith that my thesis would be possible and paying a $25 ticket felt worth it. Plus, I knew I did wrong.
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In November, 2010, I got a parking ticket just over the Boston border in Brookline. There were no “no parking” signs, and other people were parked in front and behind me. I know the “other people are doing it” excuse is not right, still, the few days before I hadn’t gotten a ticket, but this day I had. That hardly felt consistent or necessary. This ticket was for $30.
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By November 2010, I had one $25 ticket and one $30 ticket. I swear I paid the Cambridge one, but for the sake of argument – Cambridge’s argument – let’s say that I didn’t. So I had $55 total in parking tickets.
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By calling Brookline and explaining that there was no “no parking” sign, my ticket was decreased to $10 and a firm warning that “All Brookline streets have a parking ban and it’s clearly stated on the Welcome to Brookline sign”. I explained to deaf ears that there was no welcome sign. She didn’t care. In any case, my ticket was now $10. I didn’t pay it on principle. There was no sign.
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Fast forward to yesterday, June 20, 2011, and things had drastically changed. My tickets had drastically changed.
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Cambridge: Brookline:
September 2010: $25 November 2010: $10
June 2011: $95 June 2011: $70
Percent increase: 280% Percent increase: 600%
Annual % rate (APR): 373.00% Annual % rate (APR): 928.00%
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You’re reading those numbers right. I didn’t forget to divide or move the decimal. On parking tickets in Cambridge, Massachusetts, they are charging an APR of 373% and in Brookline, Massachusetts, they are charging an APR of 928%.
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After cycling through anger, despair, frustration, nausea, I finally decided that my sanity is worth more than my money and I paid these two tickets. There is no regulation on this type of behavior and it will keep going on until the right person gets hit or people finally decide they have the right to stand up for themselves. It’s not right. Typing this makes me angry. It is not our fault that we are in a recession. Moreover, I know this post will do nothing. It needs to stop.
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Patterns in i? November 29, 2010
You can imagine my surprise at the end of last school year when, on my tutoree’s final online examination, the imaginary number i was everywhere. “WHAT?” I thought, “There was just one small section of one small chapter on i in the textbook and here it is, on my students’ final exam, EVERYWHERE.” At best, it was frustrating. Sure, math is math, but different publishers tend to focus on different topics, and i was not on of those topics Glencoe included much of.
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For five years, I had taught Algebra 1 and loved it. The kids loved me and I loved all of their “ooooh, I get it!”s. But this year had been different because I was moved up to Algebra 2. So I set my mind to teach this slightly more advanced Algebra (at least with Glencoe it’s only slight), brushed up during the summer, got my curriculum down pat, taught a rough year right up until the final exam and….
BOOM! i!
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Patterns are everywhere, especially in math. The imaginary number i is no exception. The number’s value follows an interesting and very distinct pattern, repeating itself every fourth iteration. The pattern it DOES NOT fit is into a regular one in Glencoe’s Algebra 2 textbook. I was mad that my students and I had worked so hard only to be sidelined by a final exam not connected to Glencoe at all.
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So this year I changed. I taught i first! We wouldn’t be stopped! If the “patterns_of_i.xls” sheet over there in the margin for you to download and use in your classes is not enough, I’d be more than happy to email you more. You can reach me at sdonohue@post.harvard.edu.
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I quit this year, jumped a sinking ship, really. It was horrible leaving the kids- like I was going on maternity leave and never coming back. But it was the decision I had to make so that I could focus on my thesis, my health and on finding a job where I would be respected. What they say about finding happiness first before you can pass it on is true. What they also say about not doing school part-time unless your job is also part-time is also true.
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Now I’m finishing my thesis and looking for a new job, oh, and emailing you files to use in your classes. I have thousands that I’ve made over the years that I’d love to share with you.
Go i!
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3,000 denied diplomas because of MCAS – The Boston Globe June 20, 2010
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for popping me out in 1977 so I could take art and law my senior year, get class ranked, take the SATs, go to college, graduate college, go to grad school, and become a productive member of society. Thank you for having me when there was still money for electives in high school and the SATs were the big exam. Thank you for bringing me into the World when a 12th grade semi-diverse education- not a 10th grade one measured by four MCAS exams- was the goal of high school. For all of this, I am forever in your debt. I love you SO MUCH!!!
3,000 denied diplomas because of MCAS – The Boston Globe. <– Boston Globe article for anyone with a tough stomach.
One More to Graduate. Make that 50.000001% June 7, 2010
With a graduation rate in the US hovering at 50%, getting every kid to graduate from high school should be our #1 prority. Alex wasn’t a student of mine but he took precalculus in my classroom during my off period. Because our school is a small school, classrooms are shared. One day, Alex asked to use my computer to work on his credit recovery for the Algebra 2 class he had failed the year before. I let him use it, and sat with him as he worked on the problems. I taught Algebra 2 that year so it seemed only natural I help him. Alex needed to get through just this one course to graduate high school.
Before I knew it, I was helping Alex every day during my off period, and when the school year began to wear down, Alex began staying in my room all day working to get through the program. The program was difficult; much of the material isn’t covered in the Boston Algebra 2 curriculum. It started to become clear that Alex was exceptionally smart, but the program involved a lot of difficult work that would give even m top Algebra 2 students difficulty.
On Thursday June 3, 2010, Alex and I stayed at school until 10:30 PM when the custodian politely asked us when we’d be leaving. The credit recovery program deadline was at midnight and we weren’t going to be done. We were on section 10.5 and had to get to 11.11, and it was clear there wasn’t’ enough time. Alex was devastated. I was devastated. After all that time, we were defeated. Worst of all, there were errors in the program that had wrong answers as correct answers and not achieving a 75% or better on each mini quiz (there were approximately 20 in each section) meant we couldn’t move on to the next subsection.
The next day was field day. As I was waiting in my classroom for our bus to come, the director of credit recovery came to tell me he’d give Alex another day because he had gotten so far in the program. He had been given another chance! WE had been given another chance! Hard work does pay off! I called the phone number I found in the office fir Alex and told him to come in immediately to continue working.
Because I wasn’t allowed to stay behind from the field day trip, I asked another teacher to work with Alex. Alex began working again at 9AM. When I returned from field day at 1:30, Alex had gotten through just one more subsection. I was so exhausted from staying so late the night before, from field day, and just from a week of work in general, that the thought of staying late on a Friday almost brought me to tears. Still, we had to take the chance. I had to be there for Alex. He was so close to graduating that I couldn’t give up. We worked from 1:30PM to 5PM and got to section 11.5 when we ran into the advanced probability questions. Probability has never been strength of mine. I can do problems that involve using formulas, but these problems were less “marbles in a bag” or even “out of 10 people, you need to choose a president, vp, and secretary” and more “If Monty Hall opens one of the doors with a goat…” We were on section 11.5, we needed to get to 11.11, and we were stuck. I was stuck. I felt like a failure. We had been given another chance and it seemed we were defeated again. Alex wasn’t going to graduate because I couldn’t grasp that the Monty Hall probability is 2/3.
I couldn’t imagine what Alex’s weekend looked like. If I felt defeated, he must have felt devastated. If I felt frustrated, he must have felt destroyed. To get that close and have it count for nothing.
Then came Monday June 7, 2010, two day before graduating seniors were scheduled to sign out of high school forever. I was concentrating on final exam review for my juniors when the credit recovery director came back in. He has overridden the last half of chapter 11 so that Alex could take the final exam. I immediately called the phone number I had for Alex and left a message for him to come in. I had assumed Alex wasn’t in school, but he was. Maybe Alex had ore hope that I did. About 3 hours after seeing the director of credit recovery, Alex was at my door. He took the final exam. He was graduating. I called his mom to let her know, as I promised I would. I had never heard a parent so excited. It was then that it was reaffirmed in my mind and heart that hard work, as painful as it often is, always pays off. Thanks Alex.
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UPDATE: Alex was shot and killed on September 3, 2011 on his way to a barber shop in Boston.
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