GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

In my post this morning, I reported that some people are worrying that the administrative reshuffling announced today could spell yet another dramatic twist in the way schools are managed and supported. Not so, according to Eric Nadelstern, whose new title under the reshuffling — don’t call it a reorganization! — is chief schools officer.

Unlike past administrative changes, this one is happening for the sake of cost-cutting and bureaucracy-slimming, not because of any departure in ideology. Nadelstern told me in a quick telephone call that the change is actually a “validation” of the Department of Education’s last reorganization, in the spring of 2007. That reorganization, the department’s third major overhaul under Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, replaced traditional bureaucratic management layers like superintendents with a new nexus of “support” organizations that are supposed to be helpful rather than punitive. The support groups are also supposed to work like a marketplace, with schools being able to buy the services of any one of them, at prices the groups determine.

Nadelstern’s new job has him overseeing all these support groups, from the ones within the department (called LSO’s) to the private ones outside of it (PSO’s) to the Empowerment network he created, in a single office. Previously, the organizations had reported to different offices within the DOE. (more…)

Eric Nadelstern will take on expanded duties. (Via Cody Castro)

A top schools official who spearheaded the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to allow private control of some public schools is leaving the Department of Education, in a reorganization that could save the department a significant amount of money — and might or might not signal a new direction for the school system. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced the change to school leaders in a conference call this morning.

The official, JoEllen Lynch, oversaw the department’s transition to allowing schools to affiliate with private management groups like New Visions for Public Schools and CEI-PEA, in lieu of the traditional bureaucracy. The groups, known as PSO’s, were the closest that the Bloomberg administration came to emulating other urban school systems’ privatization efforts, like one in Philadelphia where for-profit management groups competed for control of public schools. Lynch’s office will be headed by another top schools official, Eric Nadelstern, who will maintain his current portfolio of schools affiliated with the Empowerment network.

The reshuffling elevates Nadelstern’s position in the department, a promotion that could elevate his gadfly ideas, too. Officials are selling the change as a way to cut costs amid ballooning concerns about the city’s fiscal prognosis. But some people who work at PSO’s are worrying the change could also be a signal that PSO’s days are numbered, and that the Empowerment network Nadelstern champions as a very lean way to run public schools will overtake them. (more…)

The City Council and the head of the principals union have urged the Department of Education to save money by reducing the number of new schools it opens this fall. But the department appears not to be laying the groundwork to adopt that strategy, instead announcing today its plan to close a large Manhattan high school.

Bayard Rustin High School for Humanities will not accept any new ninth-graders for this fall and will close permanently when its last students graduate in 2012, the DOE told staff there yesterday. The school, which currently has more than 1,500 students, has struggled mightily in recent years. Its graduation rate is below 50 percent, and it received an F on its 2007-2008 progress report, the tool the city uses to evaluate schools.

The school’s closure comes after recent turmoil that included a spike in teacher turnover and an investigation into whether the school had tampered with Regents scores. (more…)

• Experienced teachers are leaving Bronx Science, especially in the math department. (Daily News)
• After trying homeschooling for two weeks, a Brooklyn family chose public kindergarten. (Daily News)
• Schools are on the move in Riverdale. (Riverdale Press)
• Brooklyn high schoolers visited the Netherlands to learn about its tourism industry. (Brooklyn Eagle)
• Four AP exams, including the Cuomo-family-supported Italian test, are being eliminated. (Times)
• The number of unqualified teachers in D.C. is down. (Washington Post)
• Problems at a Chicago charter school highlight how quickly the city is opening schools. (Sun-Times)
• Increases in school aid in Maryland were tied to improved test scores. (Baltimore Sun)
• The Christian Science Monitor asks, What are 21st-century skills, anyway?

• Kids in Chicago are going to pose with trash to form an image of Barack Obama tomorrow. Really.
• Russo reports that Chicagoans are planning a major protest against a key Arne Duncan initiative.
• Budget cuts didn’t stop Chicago schools from ordering $67,000 in cappuccino machines.
• This week is a prime time for graduates to visit their high schools.
• The mother of an autistic son contemplates possible New Year’s resolutions.
• McDonald’s: Soon to be serving 10,000 British students with internships.
• DOE alum Andres Alonso is dealing with sticky situations in Baltimore.
• Eduwonkette advises about how to interpret the Boston charter school study.

David Paterson, via Flickr

At a time when he has proposed cutting education spending by $2.5 billion, Governor David Paterson was necessarily short on education policy proposals during his State of the State address today.

The annual address, which Paterson delivered today for the first time, is typically a forum for the governor to announce new initiatives. Paterson did propose a substantial new loan program to help high school graduates afford college.

But in a sign of the lean times, the other two programs Paterson singled out for attention both shift at least some of the burden of paying for educational services onto private providers. One, the early college high school model, partners colleges with public schools so students earn college credits during high school. Paterson also highlighted Say Yes to Education, a national foundation that supports low-income children throughout school and college; Say Yes currently works with several schools in Harlem and upstate in Syracuse.

Paterson said the state needs schools to improve without additional resources. “The road to economic competitiveness and renewal runs right through our schools,” he said. “However, during this downturn, we simply cannot spend more — so we must spend more effectively.”

Below the jump, Paterson’s full remarks on education: (more…)

Chancellor Klein earns about six times the starting salary of a new New York City teacher. But back in 1898, the first superintendent of the city’s consolidated Board of Education, William H. Maxwell, was paid $8,000 — more than 13 times what female elementary school teachers earned. (Male teachers at the time had things a little easier: They were guaranteed a minimum of $720, or about 1/11th of Maxwell’s salary, compared to female teachers’ $600.)

For the second time this school year, state education officials have taken a stand against the city Department of Education.

State Education Commissioner Richard Mills ruled last week that the DOE illegally changed a regulation about how schools involve parents and staff members in developing plans and setting their budgets. He also ruled that parents must be involved in setting schools’ goals and strategies for meeting those goals.

The decision (pdf) was a response to a complaint registered by a Queens parent back in December 2007, just after the DOE issued a revised version of a regulation about School Leadership Teams, required groups that are made up of equal numbers of parents and school staff. (more…)

James Comer

The third chapter in “Those Who Dared,” the book I’m excerpting every day this week, is by James Comer, a medical doctor who leads Yale University’s Comer School Development Program. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and other education officials in New York City and elsewhere have disparaged education schools, arguing that bright, tireless young adults who have taken crash courses in the mechanics of teaching often make the best teachers. But in his essay, Comer says some of the most valuable preparation for teachers is instruction in child development, a staple of education school programs.

Comer describes speaking to school personnel after an incident when a new student became frustrated, kicked his third-grade teacher, and ran away:

I joked to the teachers and administrators, “That was a situation of fight-and-flight rather than fight-or-flight.” They looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. They did not know what I was talking about. Almost every first-year social and behavioral science student would have understood my meaning. … These New Haven teachers were out there on the front line without having received this basic knowledge. It was at this moment that I had my great epiphany: Teachers and not being adequately prepared to teach children — their primary mission. They are not being given the yeast needed to bake the bread — they are not shown how to apply child development knowledge and skills to their practice.

Second-grade reading teacher Miss Brave has been looking up her colleagues’ salaries on SeeThroughNY, but she isn’t happy about it. She writes:

On the one hand, this makes me deeply uncomfortable. I do not want anyone visiting it, putting in my name, and finding out how much I earn. (In fact, if you read this blog and you happen to know me personally: please don’t!) But on the other hand…I totally spent the evening finding out that my principal earns a substantial 6-figure salary that is more than twice what I earn.

Of course, the Department of Education salary schedule is already public knowledge, so if you know how many years someone’s been in the system, you can take a reasonable ballpark guess as to what they earn. But to have it all warehoused in a database? Dangerous, very dangerous!