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As we watch the KIPP/UFT battle unfold, one thing seems clear: we won’t see a union contract between the two organizations anytime soon.

The unionization process for KIPP AMP is governed by the Taylor Law and overseen by the Public Employment Relations Board (“PERB”).  If and when the PERB certifies the UFT to represent the AMP teachers, KIPP will be required to begin collective bargaining.  This won’t necessarily lead to a contract, though.  From a primer published by Atlantic Legal:

“In essence, collective bargaining is the obligation of the union and the employer to meet and confer in good faith concerning employees’ terms and conditions of employment.  Thus, a good faith effort must be made by both parties to seek agreement.  However, an agreement is not required or guaranteed, since neither side is forced to accept any terms it does not want.” (more…)

• The Post found out what was in all of those investigation reports Richard Condon sent to the chancellor.
• Sexual misconduct by teachers and school staff made up a third of the crimes. (Post)
• Even with stricter promotion rules, more kids have been promoted every year under Bloomberg. (Post)
• WNYC reports on the final hearing on mayoral control, held Friday in Brooklyn.
• Learn NY and the Campaign for Better Schools brought many attendees to the hearing. (Times)
• A Harlem teacher invited all of his students to his commitment ceremony. (Times)
• The city hid its interest in building a DUMBO middle school, a FOIL request found. (Brooklyn Paper)
• Families at a Midtown high school are protesting a plan to move the school to East Harlem. (NY1)
• CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein says mayoral control has been great for the city. (Post)
• Loopholes in the DOE’s vendor rules allow convicted felons to work inside school buildings. (Daily News)
• A bus driver banned by the DOE in 2006 for taunting an autistic student is back on the job. (Post)
• Upper West Side students are building a giant pink piggy bank to raise awareness about saving. (NY1)
• The City Council is weighing a bill to require PTAs to broadcast their meetings online. (Daily News)
• The DOE disputes the claims of the student who said she warned Joel Klein that she was unsafe. (Post)

AND BEYOND:

• New York State is one of the biggest winners in the federal stimulus jackpot. (Times)
• D.C.’s pay-for-grades program induces competition but not always better grades. (Washington Post)
• Jay Mathews says the D.C. voucher program is dead — get used to it. (Washington Post)
• Applications to the New Teacher Project are up 44 percent over last year. (Chicago Sun-Times)
• E.D. Hirsch says now is the time for content-rich national standards and assessments. (Times)
• Nicholas Kristof praises D.C.’s Michelle Rhee and says Barack Obama ought to do the same. (Times)

• Randi Weingarten says that teachers upset about Obama take the press’s bad bait.
• Beth Fertig has audio from today’s mayoral control hearing in Brooklyn.
• Andy Rotherham thinks that KIPP and the union are at war, and he says that’s bad.
• Dana Goldstein says that the news is bad for Randi Weingarten.
• The deadline is approaching on signing up for the “straw poll” election.
• Some families are already hearing about their chlidren’s kindergarten assignment.
• RAND says charter schools aren’t skimming, but it’s unclear whether kids learn more.
• The day-two cage-fighting story is, How did that principal ever get hired??
• The best immigrant students may be heading back to their home countries.
• Do single-sex schools benefit girls more than they benefit boys?

Rep. Anthony Weiner at today criticized Mayor Bloomberg's work in the public schools — and seemed like he might want to keep doing that straight into City Hall.

Anthony Weiner, the congressman who used to be a mayoral candidate and now is not so sure, sounded very much like he’s still running at the Assembly hearing in Brooklyn today on mayoral control.

In a brief interview with me, Weiner said that if he does run for mayor, education would be an important part of his case against the incumbent, Michael Bloomberg. “Arguably the most important part of the conversation,” he said. He then declared of Bloomberg, “I think his most profound success was gaining mayoral control, and his biggest failure is what he’s done with it.”

Weiner’s testimony to the Assembly members who held the hearing comprised might have been his most bristling criticism of Mayor Bloomberg’s education program yet — and was certainly a departure from previous declarations that he has made promising not to “undo” Bloomberg’s work but to “build on” it. He said the mayor has both failed to empower parents and teachers — and has not produced good academic results. “When you look at the only true thing that you know can’t be fudged, how we’re doing on the national test, the results are decidedly mixed, and that’s putting it favorably,” Weiner said.

The candidate-like posturing came as a surprise to some at the hearing, who said they assumed the congressman’s recent decision to hand back $60,000 in campaign contributions meant he was out of the race. One attendee, Damon Cabbagestalk Jr., a black reverend who has run for public advocate in the past, smacked Weiner on the back as he left the room at City Technical College and told him he hopes he runs for mayor. “You’ve got my vote,” Cabbagestalk said. (more…)

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

As the debate over mayoral control mounted this winter, Comptroller William Thompson, himself a mayoral hopeful, conspicuously did not address the essential question of whether the mayor should control a majority of members on the city school board. Today, Thompson revealed his position: The mayor should appoint every board member — but he shouldn’t have unlimited choice.

Instead, according to a plan that Thompson outlined before Assembly members at a hearing on school governance in Brooklyn this morning, the mayor should select board members for two-year-long terms from a slate of candidates put forth by a 19-member ”nominating committee” representing a diverse set of interests. Under the plan, the committee would be composed of

• Five members appointed by the Mayor;
• One member apiece appointed by Borough Presidents;
• Four parent members chosen by the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council;
• A teacher selected by the United Federation of Teachers;
• A principal chosen by the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators;
• A college or university president selected by the New York State Education Commissioner; 
• A member of the business community appointed by an organized business entity selected by the Mayor; and
• An education school faculty member selected by the college or university president member.

In a statement, Thompson said the arrangement would allow the mayor to set education policy but would ensure that the perspectives of parents, teachers, and education experts are included in the decision-making process. A chief complaint of Mayor Bloomberg’s control over the schools since 2002 is that those constituencies have been ignored.

The man most considered most likely to join Thompson in the mayor’s race (other than Bloomberg himself), Rep. Anthony Weiner, has said he supports “unfettered” mayoral control, with the mayor continuing to control most seats on the city school board.

Thompson’s full statement, which includes his proposals for strengthening parent involvement and monitoring education department data, is below the jump. (more…)

Teachers at two New York City KIPP charter schools today asked state labor officials to sever their ties from the city teachers union, in petitions signed by every single teacher at the two schools. The move is a powerful response to efforts by teachers at another KIPP school in Brooklyn, KIPP AMP, who in the past few months have sought to join the politically powerful union, the United Federation of Teachers.

Teachers at KIPP Infinity and KIPP Academy charter schools, considered the two premier members of the high-profile charter network’s New York City branch, sent the petitions. The schools’ affiliations with the union were loose to begin with: KIPP Academy is represented by the union only because it was one of the city’s original charter schools, and it could only transition to charter status on the condition that it remained represented by the teachers union, and KIPP Infinity teachers are represented by the union only in order to get health benefits through the union’s services, KIPP leaders have told me.

But the union has courted a more formal relationship in recent months, according to a press release sent out this morning by KIPP Infinity and Academy teachers. The union tried to begin collective bargaining talks with KIPP Infinity — without consulting with any KIPP Infinity teachers, the release says. The union also filed a grievance against KIPP Academy “without solicitation or support of staff,” the release says. (more…)

The five-borough tour by members of the State Assembly’s education committee to listen to public comments about mayoral control ends today with a marathon hearing in Brooklyn.

The hearing begins at City Tech at 10 a.m. and, like its predecessors, is likely to stretch long into the evening. Education committee chair Cathy Nolan says today’s hearing will focus on the Department of Education’s business contracts, as well as on academic achievement under mayoral control, reports Helen Zelon for Insideschools. One person who will testify on behalf of the DOE for the first time is Eric Nadelstern, the official who was recently promoted to “chief schools officer” for the system, Zelon reports.

Some mayoral control fans got an early start this morning. An e-mail sent by an intern at Learn NY, the group lobbying to preserve mayoral control, suggested that attendees arrive an hour early, at 9 a.m., “for visibility.” East Brooklyn Congregations, a coalition of churches, is also holding a pre-hearing rally to support mayoral control; David Brawley, a co-chair, said in a press release that the coalition is bringing 350 parent and community leaders to represent the roughly 350 new schools created under Mayor Bloomberg’s school leadership. Last month, Elizabeth met an EBC leader, Reverend David Haberer, and took this video of him explaining why he supports mayoral control:

Then, late in the afternoon, after they get off from work, parents who support changing the school governance structure will pour into the hearing, according to April Humphrey, who organizes the Campaign for Better Schools, which is calling for more community involvement in school governance. About 150 Campaign for Better Schools supporters arrived at last week’s Bronx hearing around 5:30 p.m., Humphrey told me.

• Three new citywide gifted programs are opening this fall. (GothamSchools, City Room, Daily News, Post)
• Charter schools are funding a parent campaign for mayoral control, Juan Gonzalez says. (Daily News)
• Despite new financial incentives, schools still aren’t hiring many excessed teachers. (Daily News)
• The DOE’s proposed capital plan costs nearly twice as much per seat as the current one. (Daily News)
• Some pre-kindergarten programs are losing extra funds that let them stay open all day. (Daily News)
• A survey found that most downtown residents want mayoral control changes. (Downtown Express)
• Randi Weingarten clarifies the UFT’s position on mayoral control in a letter to the Wall Street Journal.
• Michelle Obama and other powerful women took to the D.C. schools yesterday. (Times, Washington Post)

• Our student-blogger Angelica says measuring students’ intelligence is complicated.
• Chancellor Joel Klein joined the board of the Broad Center, which trains superintendents.
• Aaron Pallas explains why he’s skeptical about Michelle Rhee’s niceness campaign.
• A Dallas principal sent students to a steel cage to battle out their disagreements.
• Send money to schools by joining Twitter? Edwize explains how this makes sense.
• Pissed Off Teacher has an idea for how to cut down on cutting class: public shaming.
• A firsthand report on a rally against “invasion of the school snatchers”: charter schools.
• The teen birth rate is rising. Dana Goldstein explains why.

When results of the Department of Education’s screening for gifted and talented programs came out last year, parents of qualifying children had two major complaints: that the ultra-elite programs were all located in Manhattan, and that some districts didn’t have gifted kindergarten classes.

Today, the department revealed the locations of three new programs reserved for the highest-scoring children throughout the city; All three are in Brooklyn and Queens. And back in October, before screening for the programs even started, the DOE announced that all district gifted programs would now begin in kindergarten.

I became familiar with parents’ complaints last year because I was then blogging at Insideschools.org, the site that many parents use to research schools. My posts about gifted and talented admissions got hundreds of comments, such as this one:

The three programs announced today could double the number of seats in citywide gifted programs, depending on whether families choose to enroll in them. But that would still mean that fewer than half of the children qualifying for the programs last year could be accommodated. (more…)