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Thought I was done for the day but this last thing — a new television ad from the teachers union that will air in New York City and Albany through February. The ad argues that education funding has to stay a priority despite the terrible economy.

According to the press release I just got, you’re likely to see it if you watch one of the following shows:

Oprah, Law & Order, CSI, Today, Good Morning America, Meet the Press and late night talk shows such as Late Night with David Letterman, among others, along with local morning and evening news shows.

• On Monday, Joel Klein and a bunch of other urban school leaders did a panel. Watch. (Via Daily Howler.)
• Joanne Jacobs suggests that technology (texting, Tweeting, etc.) can help schools connect with parents.
• Aaron Pallas urges researchers to ask why policies work, not just whether they work.
• Arne Duncan’s new senior staff reportedly includes a chief operating officer.
• A U.K. study finds that bad neighborhoods definitely hurt school morale, but are less tied to low test scores.
• There are more reasons to ask that new school construction funds include pre-K.
• Edspresso wants your advice for President Obama on education.

The charter school teacher who goes by Mildly Melancholy first got our attention here when she was unceremoniously fired, in the middle of the school year, after struggling for months with what sounds like precious little support from administrators and fellow staff. Since then, she’s inspired a great debate in the comments section here about what it means to be a teacher, how to measure teacher quality, and whether urban teachers are asked to do too much.

And now, she’s emerged from a period of quiet on the subject of herself to respond to this raging debate. The long response she’s posted is worth a read, especially her disclosure that she’s the third teacher in the grade she taught to be dismissed from this particular school. (Maybe she’s not the one to blame here.)

Here are some other highlights from the robust conversation Mildly Melancholy started. (more…)

The panel where Linda Darling-Hammond spoke yesterday.

Linda Darling-Hammond may be feared and loathed by the younger reform set, but among the people who sat with me last night on the Upper East Side to watch her talk, she is such a star! Before the start of the panel, put on by Bank Street College of Education, all I could hear was the simultaneous sound of my Blackberry buzzing with eager e-mails about her and audience members asking their neighbors, “Has Linda arrived yet?”

She finally did, apparently via the very last available train to New York from Washington, D.C., where she had been for Barack Obama’s inauguration. At the panel, she quickly made it clear how dramatically accountability regimes would change if she is given a major role in the Obama administration. (Of course, that’s a big if: Though Darling-Hammond chaired the education policy team for Obama’s transition, it’s looking like those who have the ear of new Education Secretary Arne Duncan come from a different set. She didn’t comment on this yesterday.)

Darling-Hammond laid out a dramatic picture of how she hopes Obama will change American schools, one that (for the most part) differed substantially from the vision currently in vogue, the “idealocrat” program Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has pushed. Darling-Hammond’s big idea is to move America away from a factory model of education, where teachers are seen as trade workers, and toward a model that treats teachers as just as important as doctors or lawyers. The change, as she sees it, requires that teachers are given better and more extensive training, and that the federal government change the way it evaluates their work, moving from No Child Left Behind’s standardized test-based system into one based on sensitive open-ended assessments that schools might create themselves.

She hinted that the last part might be the biggest challenge — to “get the measuring right.” (more…)

On Tuesday morning, the 98 students at NYCiSchool gathered in their school’s common room to watch the inauguration of President Barack Obama. This is a report about that experience from Raquel and Angelica, two students who are writing occasional columns for GothamSchools on their experiences attending a New York City public school.

Raquel: Returning to school after a 3-day weekend to sit in front of two flatscreen televisions and watch Obama’s inauguration was nothing short of amazing, because we were glued to something more than a television screen. We were glued into history.

We also created historical artifacts of our own. A school-wide assignment required each student to write a list of the topics we wanted to hear Obama address in his speech. As the speech progressed, we recorded what topics he actually covered. This way, we were able to document not only what we heard, but what it meant to us.

I predict that unlike many school assignments, we’ll remember this one as not just one more piece of paper. Instead, we will be able to use this assignment as a tool to evaluate whether Obama has kept his word to America, and to us.

Angelica: We are teenagers, a rowdy group to tame, especially when concentrated all in one room — and yet the sound of Barack Obama’s even voice, fierce and calm, muted us. (more…)

The rising tide of transparency seems to have infected a South Bronx schoolteacher. Since last August, the teacher has been skewering Department of Education policies on his blog, South Bronx School. He reserves the harshest words for his school administrators, whom he nicknamed “Numb Nuts” and “John Deacon,” and whom he recently accused of committing corporal punishment, in a complaint he says he sent to the Special Commissioner of Investigations.

Yesterday, for reasons that aren’t explained on his blog, the teacher revealed the name of his school, PS 154 in the Bronx, and his administrators’ real names. He did not disclose his own name. Many teachers have damning things to say about their schools, and while some criticisms are justified, others are not. We called 154′s principal today for comment and are waiting to hear back.

Not everyone has embraced the spirit of openness yet. The first comment, left just minutes after the post went up: “Whoo Hoo!!!!” Its author: Anonymous.

Garth Harries

The top Department of Education official who is set to review the city’s special education system is adding another job to his plate: He’s joining a national program designed to produce top-notch urban superintendents.

Garth Harries, who until the end of this month is the chief executive of the DOE’s portfolio department, is one of 12 people accepted into this year’s Broad Superintendents Academy class. The academy, which is based on business executive training programs, is run by the Broad Foundation, which also gives out the annual Broad Prize for Urban Education. New York City won the Broad Prize in 2007.

As a Broad fellow, Harries will stay on at the DOE but will leave the city for six multi-day retreats throughout the year. He’ll also have regular homework assignments. (Already, Helen Zelon at Insideschools has chimed in with concern about just how much Harries can cram into his calendar.) We asked Harries for a statement, and got this response from Chancellor Joel Klein instead:

Garth’s selection reflects the extraordinary work he’s done in New York and his potential to be a great superintendent in the future.

The Broad Academy says it expects its graduates to seek superintendencies, but of the DOE officials who have gone through the program, most still work in the city. (more…)

In the spirit of transparency, here is this week’s Principals’ Weekly, the newsletter Chancellor Joel Klein sends to principals alerting them to policy updates every week.

In his opening note, Klein tells principals why he went to Washington, D.C., on Monday for the Education Equality Project. He said he’s “calling out for our nation’s attention”:

Addressing the achievement gap and helping our students graduate from our schools ready for college or work is not a frill or an extra; these steps are fundamental necessities.

I wish Franklin were around to comment on this: The Department of Education’s director of food technology, a job I didn’t know existed, but now seems important, is letting principals know that DOE peanut butter is good, despite the expanding recall. Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies are not yet confirmed safe. UPDATE: Peanut butter cookies have now been declared safe, school officials tell me.

I think this counts as a good use of teacher e-mail/phone time, yes? Here’s director Paul Uffer’s note:

Subject: Peanut Butter Update
Importance: High

Please be advised that SchoolFood has confirmed that the PB&J Cutouts and the #10 containers of Peanut Butter used for our program are not affected by the recent peanut butter recall by The Peanut Corporation of America.

Listed below are the current peanut butter brands used in SchoolFood operations

#10 containers – Sunny Boy or Sunshine

PB&J Cutouts – Sunshine

Peanut Butter Cookies

Food Tech is still waiting on confirmation of the brand of peanut butter used in the Linden’s Peanut Butter cookies.  Until further notice, please put do not use the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip cookies.  Please place any boxes aside and label “DO NOT USE“.  Further instructions will follow. (more…)

• A Brooklyn Latin teacher considers the ritual of after-school drinks for educators. (Times)
• Letters from Harlem elementary school kids to President Obama. (Newsweek)
• The ACLU is suing over a Minneapolis charter school geared to Muslim students. (Star-Tribune)
• A debate over teaching evolution in Texas has far-reaching implications. (Times)
• The founders of GreatSchools.net offer Obama parenting advice. (Education Week)
• D.C.-area parents are angry about the idea of no longer calling some kids “gifted.” (Washington Post)