GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Flypaper: Think school reform isn’t moving fast enough? Think again.
• Toni Bruno from the New York City Student Union says kids are sharing student government ideas.
• They Call Me Teacher is waiting for her students to go wild, now that the state math test is over.
• See a video presentation about that new report that says standards vary widely from state to state.
• The words “children,” “think,” and “work” dominate Politics K-12′s Arne Duncan tag cloud.
• Congress wants 40 percent of stimulus funds to be spent on middle and high schools.
• The Education Writers Association’s annual awards have been announced, and Elizabeth got one!
• This week might have included a rare Square Root Day, but today was (England’s) World Book Day.

Julissa Morban, a senior at University Heights High School in the Bronx, said she is worried that some of her teachers could be laid off. (GothamSchools)

Here’s one snapshot from today’s rally to oppose budget cuts and support a move toward progressive taxation in New York State. At its peak, the rally stretched at least half a dozen blocks up Broadway from City Hall, and as I made my way through the dense crowd, I spotted students and teachers from all five boroughs. I’ll post more details about my experience tomorrow. If you were there, what did you think?

Comptroller Bill Thompson. (Via Azi's Flickr.)

My former colleague Jacob Gershman is very good at raising subjects everyone is talking about but nobody says in print. He did so with today’s piece on Comptroller William Thompson Jr., who is making school issues a big part of his mayoral campaign — without clarifying his positions on some of the main school issues of the day.

Gershman argues Thompson possesses a “carefully cultivated irrelevance.” But there is stuff we do know about where Thompson stands on education issues, though much of the facts raise more questions than they answer.

First, we know that he’s said he favors retaining control of the school system if he becomes mayor. It’s unclear exactly how much control he’d like to give himself (a big empty space, as we pointed out), but he’s said repeatedly that he supports the mayor having primary authority. “I may be in a shrinking group of those who support it,” he told a committee in testimony that was supposed to be off the record but which I obtained when I was at the New York Sun.

We also know the two main points of attack Thompson has selected for criticizing Bloomberg’s school efforts: He criticizes the mayor on transparency, which he says is so poor that even his office struggles to understand the school system’s finances, and parental involvement. Both of these are safe issues; they’re exactly the points conceded by one of the most prominent mayoral allies on schools, Geoffrey Canada, and they avoid the nastier battlegrounds of school closings, accountability, and charter schools. (more…)

Community groups from Crown Heights, East Harlem, and the Ridgewood section of Queens are the latest to sign on with Learn NY, the group lobbying to preserve mayoral control.

The law that created mayoral control is set to expire at the end of June, and state legislators are currently grappling with whether to preserve, eliminate, or alter the school governance system. Learn NY is trying to amass a coalition to show legislators that many New Yorkers are happy with mayoral control as it currently exists. 

Yesterday the group announced that the coalition now has 40 members, up from just over 30 a month ago. The new additions range in size from a single person, in the case of Demetrius Carolina, pastor of Staten Island’s First Central Baptist Church, to all of Fordham University.

One of the organizations added to the list yesterday also runs one of the nine support networks that principals can hire to provide training for teachers. Fordham University’s network currently works with 10 schools. Other coalition members, including Urban Assembly, Ghetto Film School, and the Young Women’s Leadership Network, are lead partners for DOE schools created during Mayor Bloomberg’s administration. In the past, Bloomberg has been criticized for citing as backers organizations to which he or the city gives financial support.

Learn NY has solicited backers in a “grassroots” fashion since launching late last year, by reaching out to community groups and trying to sell them on Learn NY’s platform, spokeswoman Julie Wood told me. (more…)

A flyer advertising the rally

In just a couple of hours, at 4 p.m., the steps of City Hall will be swarmed with what labor leaders hope will be thousands of New Yorkers who fear that budget cuts could threaten important programs and services.

The rally, which the city teachers union is co-sponsoring, is one of several being held across the state today to lobby against the severe cuts included in Governor Paterson’s budget proposal, released in December. Legislators are working now to negotiate the state’s budget, which must be approved by the end of this month.

Some of the state cuts, particularly in education, appear likely to be reduced or even eliminated by funds allocated in the federal stimulus bill. But the groups sponsoring today’s rally think more could be done to insulate New Yorkers from the effects of economic recession. In particular, they are lobbying for what they call “Fair Share Tax Reform,” which would increase taxes on the state’s highest earners. Some have called this the “millionaire’s tax.” 

Last month, I asked United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten whether the stimulus funds would solve the city’s school budget woes. She reminded me that the federal government is just one of the Department of Education’s funding streams, along with the state and the city:

The stimulus package is a pretty big piece of solving this puzzle, of solving this problem, but it’s not enough. … We still have to go up to Albany, and we still have to figure out if there are cuts that are left, how to do alternatives that do not hurt classrooms and direct services to kids. …

We still have to drive the message through Albany, we still have to drive the message through the City Council, that we have to deal with all of the cuts, and that we need to keep education alive for kids in the city.

See Weingarten’s statement on video.

I have been compiling some New York City charter school data from tax filings.  “IRS Form 990″ is the required federal filing for tax-exempt organizations.  On these public documents, you can find information about fundraising and spending.  Since these forms are usually filed several months after the end of the reporting period, the most recent data I could find was for the 2006-2007 school year.  (I hope to get 2007-2008 data later this year.)

For the 39 schools for which I could get good data, the total amount of contributions received directly from individuals and foundations was $11,625,432.  These same schools served 9,898 students in that school year.  Therefore, the average per pupil philanthropic contribution was $1,175.

Several notes on this:
1. The 39 schools were taken from a list of 50 New York City charter schools in my database.  These 50 schools were chosen because they have taken state exams in 2007-2008.  (more…)

In honor of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan offering some qualified support for the DC Opportunity Scholarship program–if only by saying that students currently receiving vouchers should not be pulled out of their current schools–here’s one last skoolboy post on the only federally-funded voucher program enabling students to attend religious and other private schools:

On Monday, following the publication of the Washington Post‘s editorial in favor of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, the Post hosted a bizarre but fascinating on-line debate between readers and Jo-Ann Armao, an editorial writer for the Post who probably wrote the editorial.  The Washington Post has some smart readers!  Not quite in the same league as GothamSchools readers, of course, but pretty sharp nevertheless.

At one point in the debate, Ms. Armao wrote:

“Let’s be clear on what researchers have determined about the program. The latest study was released in June of 2008 and it is true that no statisitcally significant difference in test scores was found between students who were offered scholarships and those who were not. At the same time, though, researchers noted a promising trend: 88 per cent of participating students were reading two to four months ahead of children who did not receive a scholarship.” (more…)

• For those who are not paying attention, mayoral control is up for renewal this summer. (AP)
• Comptroller Bill Thompson’s record on education shows he’s not a reformer. (Post)
• The DOE is looking to expand the program that grades teachers by test scores. (Post, GothamSchools)
• Girls at East Side Community High School take classes in skateboarding. (Voice of America)
• Some Bronx students are learning how to produce news for YouTube. (Riverdale Press)
• The stimulus money is meant to reshape American education, Arne Duncan says. (Washington Post)
• The Jewish Week says a Hebrew language charter school could threaten religious day schools.
• Arne Duncan doesn’t want D.C. students using vouchers to have to leave their schools. (AP)

• A DOE employee says she blogs in order to make educator voices heard.
• Alexander Russo says Arne Duncan doesn’t make waves; Flypaper disagrees.
• Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the girl who sat with Michelle Obama during the president’s speech, is famous.
• A parent proposes a “day of action” to publicize concerns with current trends in school reform.
• NYSUT issues a late news flash about the law banning use of test scores to determine tenure.
• A parent’s diary from the middle school search; don’t judge until you step inside!
• Will Richardson highlights a compilation of research in favor of teachers using social networking.
• A new budget proposal in Ohio puts charter schools there at risk of having to shut down.
• Sawchuck: Reducing class size is one of few policies backed by “good research,” but it’s sooo expensive.

The header of Stiles's blog

About that blog that says it’s written by Joel Klein e-mail confidante and actress Julia Stiles: It is.

Stiles’ agent, Toni Howard, just confirmed for me that the blog, You Know My Steez, is in fact the actress’s own. So far, the star of “Save the Last Dance” and “The Bourne Ultimatum” has written three posts, one a link to a short film she directed and two about the city schools, which she attended until middle school.

As New York Magazine originally reported, Stiles gave Klein her e-mail address after she interrupted his comments at a private party with stories from her own experience in the city’s schools, and the two exchanged a few messages. On her blog, Stiles reveals the contents of their dialogue:

I was nothing short of surprised when I discovered a message from him in my inbox the next morning, especially considering my handwriting is entirely illegible (not the fault of public education, by the by). I sat at my computer, regretful that I had not brought a muzzle to the dinner, when lo and behold, Joel Klein had contacted me. So I responded and we started a short dialogue about how charter schools are good, and I mentioned one in particular that I visited where the teachers were enthusiastic and energetic. He agreed that the schools need better materials and equipment (like the beaker I never saw in the science class that didn’t exist). He reminded me that the Bloomberg administration has invested $8 billion in education, while trying to cut wasteful bureaucratic spending (okay, checkmate).

And he finished by saying, “Keep in touch from time to time. I like your fire.”