GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Photo by teacher-blogger Mildly Melancholy.

We’re making like the public schools and taking the next several days off. Regular activity (resolutely thinner, fitter, and better of course) will resume in the new year.

• Budget cuts to the city housing authority will force 19 community centers to shut down.
• The city students’ union announces a conference on effective student government.
• Patrick Sullivan called for cuts to the press and accountability offices at last week’s PEP.
• Against an apparent anti-textbook trend, an example of how a physics textbook changed a life.
• The National Governors Association is pushing for matching state standards to international ones.
• Rick Hess and Mike Petrilli argue that President Bush let No Child Left Behind get hijacked by the left.
• New research shows 35% of Teach for America members are still teaching five years out.
• Bob Herbert invokes Randi Weingarten to argue for an “attitude adjustment” on workers.

Ms. T. is blogging about her experience working in a Collaborative Team Teaching classroom. CTT classes have a mix of students in general education and special education, and each class has two teachers, one with special education certification. Ms. T is the general education teacher in her classroom.

As the year draws to a close, I begin to reflect on the changes that have taken place in my teaching life throughout the last year. I left a wonderful school, with an amazing administration, and a great team of coworkers. I moved states away to New York City to spend a torturous time finding a job (but at least I found one). I have felt miserable more days than I thought possible working at this school, more days than I’d ever thought possible, period. Teaching has always been my highlight, my enjoyment. The past few months have taught me one thing for sure. It’s not always easy, and sadly, it’s not always fun.

Yet, despite all the less enjoyable thoughts that come to mind when I think about the second half of 2008, I can also find some truly amazing things that have happened. (more…)

From the department of questions Caroline Kennedy may or may not answer, here are two I sent to her via her spokesman yesterday:

1. What is your position on mayoral control? Should it be reauthorized with no changes or are there any revisions that would be acceptable? For instance, Geoffrey Canada’s group has argued that the Bloomberg administration did not do enough to involve parents in decision-making. Do you agree with that assessment?

2. What portion of money raised by the Fund for Public Schools went toward the advertising campaign called “Keep it Going NYC”? Could you explain the specific importance of those advertisements? I’ve heard several explanations but never a really clear one about how they directly or indirectly help the public schools.

You can see the answer Kennedy did provide to a mayoral control question from the Times here, saying she supports it broadly but is open to revisions “so long as they don’t prevent the Mayor from taking the actions he thinks are appropriate and for which he will be held accountable.” I haven’t received a reply to my questions yet. Any others we should be asking?

Another notable nugget from the mayoral control forum Friday came from Udi Ofer, the advocacy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union. NYCLU hasn’t taken a position on the most basic question of mayoral control (should the mayor have control or should there be a school board), but the organization seems very likely to push for adding checks and balances to the Department of Education’s authority.

Echoing concerns that I wrote about last week, Ofer said a central problem lies in the Department of Education’s peculiar position between being a state agency subject to state oversight and a city agency subject to city oversight. He gave two examples of how the dilemma plays out. The first is that the DOE, by his account, refuses to follow both the state and city versions of a law called the Administrative Procedures Act, which forces government agencies to, among other things, allow some finite public comment period before enacting new regulations.

Here’s his explanation (and below it I’ll put his second example, the mayor’s refusal to enact the City Council’s Dignity in all Schools Act):

(more…)

Add the annual musical at the city’s most selective music and theater school — yes, the one from “Fame” — to the list of potential budget casualties.

Via City Room, here’s what one teacher at the school, Manhattan’s LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, had to say:

Paula Washington, the La Guardia chapter leader of teachers’ union and an alumn[a] of the school, acknowledged that it was a “huge loss,” but said it was hard to fault the decision given the broader budget situation. School officials are bracing for cuts of up to $1.5 billion in the department’s $20 billion budget next year.

“There are often agents in the audience at these performances, so there is a real loss of exposure for students.” said Ms. Washington, who teaches orchestra at the school and lamented the loss of two violin instructors who have yet to be replaced.

“We’re down to the marrow here,” she added. “Forget about cutting to the bone, we’re talking about full level amputations now.

Mayor Bloomberg presenting a budget update in November.

In response to GothamSchools’ survey about how schools plan to handle the budget cuts, several principals are saying they can’t begin to speculate about what they’ll slash because they don’t know yet how much money they’ll be losing.

They won’t find out for a while. Their first hint will come next month, when the city presents to the City Council its preliminary budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

Principals will really be able to start planning for next year in the “late spring,” DOE spokeswoman Ann Forte told me. The state’s fiscal year begins April 1, so by then schools will know how much they’re losing from the state and will also have a good idea of how much they’ll receive in city funds.

The process to arrive at the city’s preliminary budget is underway now. (more…)

For teacher-blogger Jose Vilson, teaching math skills to his often overage students is one thing. Getting them to think big for themselves and their futures is another, as a handshake from a macho middle schooler yesterday reminded him. Vilson writes:

Frankly, I can hardly blame the kid for coming up to me thinking he’d try and intimidate me with his “tough talk.” He’s very open about his late-night excursions and makes overly lucid (and lewd) gestures. Why, that’s similar to what he’s already seeing promoted to him all over the media that’s targeted towards him. Yet, working with his dad doing janitorial work on the weekends and studying doesn’t appeal to him because he rarely sees men of his background step up to the plate, take him by the shoulder, and guide him any which way. As a teacher, I stand directly against what hes already been taught about himself, and that’s probably the hardest part about teaching him in general.

• The city’s budget shortfall next year could be worse that the mayor has anticipated. (Post)
• The number of families with kids living in shelters is at a record high. (Times)
• Families are struggling to make Catholic school tuition payments. (Post)
• Stuyvesant HS won’t have anti-cheating metal detectors, despite its principal’s wishes. (Post)
• A former assistant principal was fined for using school funds to take herself shopping. (Post, Daily News)
• Caroline Kennedy’s positions on education are mostly a mystery. (Politico)

• JD2718 adds Bronx Science to his list of schools to which teachers should not apply.
• He also thinks that this blog gives excessive weight to prominent voices.
• Tim Daly of The New Teacher Project and his brother, a football coach, riff off Gladwell’s latest.
• Leonie Haimson posts full videos from Friday’s forum on mayoral control.
• Arne Duncan wrote his Harvard senior thesis about a South Side Chicago neighborhood.
• Some parents pushed for District 3 middle schools to become more diverse as MS 44 closes.
• At last week’s PEP meeting, Patrick Sullivan and others levied complaints about special education.
• Ken Hirsh sees a dilemma for charter school leaders here who oppose card-check but support Obama.
• NPR reports that museums are pitching field trips as test-prep.
• A teacher-blogger wants to start a conversation about why elementary school teachers have tenure.

An update on my post earlier today, about whether the school system’s Special Commissioner for Investigations should have to send his reports to more than just the schools chancellor. As I reported, the city’s position is that the acting Board of Education, the Panel for Educational Policy, shouldn’t receive the reports, even though SCI’s charter dictates that it should.

I first reported that I didn’t know why the city took that position. I just spoke to a spokeswoman at the city law department, who filled me in a bit more: The reason, she said, is buried in a little place you’ve probably never looked called education law section 2590-g, which governors the “Powers and duties of the city board.”

Here’s how the law begins:

The city board shall advise the chancellor on matters of policy affecting the welfare of the city school district and its pupils. The board shall exercise no executive power and perform no executive or administrative functions. Nothing herein contained shall be construed to require or authorize the day-to-day supervision or the administration of the operations of any school within the city school district of the city of New York.

I’m no lawyer, but I guess the argument goes that because the Board of Ed — e.g. the PEP — is no longer an executive power it also shouldn’t receive SCI reports? Or, alternatively, they’re arguing that reviewing SCI reports is a matter of “day-to-day supervision” or operations administration?

I’m not sure. The law department spokeswoman, Connie Pankratz, wouldn’t get into details.