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Arlene Ackerman speaks to parents in Philadelphia. Photo by April Saul, courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Parents who say they don’t get enough input into what happens in the New York City schools might like Philadelphia’s new superintendent.

As part of her research for a new strategic plan she is drafting for the Philadelphia schools, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman is convening a series of community meetings to get ideas and answer questions (and anyone can help set up a meeting).

She held her first monthly roundtable with about 200 parents last week, who asked about everything from field trips to improving communication with non-English speaking parents.

She’s also meeting with parents in their homes, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

But some parents want to see even more of her:

Judith Jackson, whose grandchildren attend Wakisha Charter, wants more access to the superintendent - did she ever think about one-on-one, open-door sessions?

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Ackerman, who noted it as a good idea. “I wonder: Do I give everyone five minutes? Do I do it on a Saturday? I’ve got to think about it.”

Via Philadelphia teacher-blogger Christopher Paslay.

New York State Education Building

New York City is one of just three cities that has not yet gotten approval for its plan for how to spend a special set of state funds, known as the Contracts for Excellence dollars.

The funds work like a contract: Districts with needy students and schools get extra money — but on the condition that they spend it only on the neediest schools and only through certain programs. Districts do not get their state allocation until the State Education Department approves the district’s proposal for how to spend the funds.

Last week, SED approved 10 more districts’ spending plans, bringing the total approved this year to 36. Only 39 districts are eligible to receive the special funds this year. (The other two districts still waiting for approval are Rochester and Amsterdam.)

A request from state officials to the city Department of Education could be what’s holding up New York City’s proposal: I reported early last month that SED asked the New York City alone to provide more detailed information about how it plans to use state funds to reduce class size.

“We are working with the remaining districts to finalize their contracts,” SED spokesman Jonathan Burman told me last month by e-mail. “There is no deadline” by which districts must have their contracts approved.

A similar standoff happened last year, in the first round of Contracts for Excellence money ever doled out. Insiders reported that bitter negotiations between the state and the city were behind a months-long delay in approving the city’s plan, but officials said the conversations were “cooperative.” Because of the delay, the state did not approve any district’s spending plan until the end of November.

If Schools Chancellor Joel Klein really ranks among Barack Obama’s choices for Secretary of Education, it might not even matter whether the New York City schools are any good.

At least that’s what one public relations expert says.

Patrick Riccards, a PR executive who specializes in education communications, wrote on his blog, Eduflack, yesterday that Klein would make a good Ed Sec pick because the chancellor has led a “revolution in public education.” But no sooner did he post than Riccards received a torrent of protests from New York City-based readers, who used the comments section to argue that Klein’s claims about higher test scores and increased parent engagement are inflated.

Riccards, who is based in D.C., immediately agreed that he has a lot to learn about New York’s schools. But then he wrote:

Does this change the possibility of Klein joining an Obama administration? I think not. The Klein story is still one that is well known and one that is well respected (well, maybe not as respected by UFT). In ed reform, believing you have done something is almost as important as actually doing it. And most believe we have improved NYC public schools.

A middle school in Harlem is being renamed after Terence Tolbert, the beloved Department of Education official who died last week while working in Nevada for the Obama campaign, according to the New York Times’ City Room blog.

Mayor Bloomberg announced today at a packed funeral service held at IS 195 in Harlem that the school would now be known as the Terence D. Tolbert Education Complex in honor of the lobbying chief, City Room reports. Tolbert attended IS 195 before moving on to the Bronx High School of Science.

City Room says Chancellor Joel Klein was among the 1,000 people attending the funeral, and President-elect Barack Obama sent a letter to be read aloud. Tolbert died of a heart attack at age 44 just two days before the election, during which Obama won Nevada.

Hundreds of New York City parents are writing directly to President-elect Obama with their opposition to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein as a Secretary of Education pick.

Organized by the Public School Parent Advocacy Committee, the parents are hoping to balance out the spate of positive media attention the chancellor has enjoyed in recent days. Today, for example, the New York Times noted as the only downside of Klein’s prospective participation on Obama’s “new team” his bitter relationship with Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

PSPAC, a consortium of PTA political advocacy committees, plans to deliver a letter to the Obama’s transition team that calls on the president-elect to choose an education secretary who has “deep practical experience in teaching and learning.” As a businessman, Klein has “disastrously neglected the fundamental needs of children,” the letter says.

Ann Kjellberg, a leading PSPAC member, told me she’s gotten about 100 signatures since Friday, when she first released the letter. Other parents are now circulating the letter by e-mail as well, she said. “I do seem to be getting some people new to this,” Kjellberg said. “A few have told me their stories of frustrations with the DOE that drive them to question a Klein nomination.”

PSPAC’s entire letter is after the jump. (more…)

Lucy Friedman, president of The After-School Corporation (TASC), which advocates for and supports after-school programs in New York and beyond, will take your questions at the Times.

So far, commenters have asked for her opinion on federal education priorities under Obama, whether there are programs that support parents as well as children, what the economic downturn means for TASC, and what role after-school programs can play at “failing” schools:

As part of No Child Left Behind, children at some “failing” schools are eligible for free after-school tutoring at places like Sylvan Learning Center. We see, however, dramatic underutilization of these services — only ~3% of eligible children enroll. Are educational after-school programs a solution to failing schools? If so, what will it take to get more children to participate?

Bureaucratizing a good idea can defeat the purpose, says the teacher who blogs at Have a Gneiss Day:

We are being absolutely killed with paperwork. Case in point: the kids must write goals for themselves for each marking period. Now, I think it is a good idea for children to reflect upon their strengths and weaknesses, and figure out ways they can improve their grades. However- not only do we have to conference with the kids about their goals, review the goals with them, sign off on the goals, collect the goal sheets, verify that parents have signed the goals, organize the goals- we have to attach evidence that they are meeting their goals. … Days are being wasted that could be used on valuable instruction and completing activities to reinforce new concepts. I’m growing stacks and mounds and piles of papers that need to somehow be organized into some sort of meaningful log so that if “they” come, I can show how I wasted hours of class time….

Who is the “they” for whom her school is gathering all this evidence of goal-setting?

Every New York City school is now subject to a yearly Quality Review by a team who visits for a day or two and looks for evidence of certain practices laid out in a school quality rubric. So her school has to show the reviewers that each of their teachers has been setting and monitoring goals with the students:

Click graphic to enlarge.

The Gawker empire’s woman’s blog, Jezebel, makes a Secretary of Education nomination. Jezebel gives the nod to “someone who taught us all how to break education down to its simplest form, and taught us to appreciate the alphabet, letter by letter,” as seen in this video:

FROM NEW YORK CITY:

• The governor says schools will not escape mid-year budget cuts. (Times)
• Despite the budget crisis, the DOE still plans to give bonuses to schools that do well on state tests. (Post)
• Half of the new high schools that opened this year are under capacity. (Post)
• High tuition is driving some families away from private schools. (Post)
• School psychologists spend too little time seeing kids, the public advocate says. (Post)
• White and Asian students outperform other students on the specialized high school test. (Times)
• The city did not sufficiently check for safety at a new school site in the Bronx, a judge ruled. (Times)
• The comptroller and chancellor are sparring over budget cut numbers. (Daily News)

AND BEYOND:

• Chancellor Klein’s connections help make him a front-runner for Secretary of Education. (Times)
• Time Magazine takes a look at Klein and other Ed Sec contenders.
• Diane Ravitch argues that Obama should start by revising the No Child Left Behind act. (Forbes)
• The BBC News compares Obama’s education plans with recent school reforms in England.
• Jay Mathews takes a look at a public school the Obamas might choose. (Washington Post)
• Some say a violent middle school hasn’t gotten the help Michelle Rhee promised. (Washington Post)
• With advice from New York, Denver plans its first shared-space schools. (Denver Post)
• New Hampshire plans to start letting kids graduate after 10th grade. (Time)