GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• For city charter schools, first there was bad news, then mixed news, then good news.
• Aaron Pallas says the Leadership Academy’s policy of axing some principals is inefficient.
• The Frustrated Teacher explains why he “now officially teach[es] to the test.”
• Pondiscio asks if test prep constitutes “educational malpractice.”
• Another frustrated teacher doesn’t like it that her colleague is glued to a Blackberry.
• Rotherham says Duncan’s tough words can’t be a substitute for the political will to change.
• Here’s the list of the five districts nominated for the Broad Prize this year.
• Randi Weingarten is getting lots of love from Sharpton and Arne Duncan.
• Here’s the agenda for tomorrow’s session of the Sharpton-Klein convention.

A group of parents is sharply criticizing the Department of Education for backing away from its decision to shut down struggling neighborhood elementary schools, saying Mayor Bloomberg should “take a hard line” and turn over the buildings to be used as charter schools.

The parents, who are zoned to have their children attend two of the schools that would have been closed and replaced with charter schools, said that they want the mayor to shut the schools down because the schools are dirty, dangerous, and filled with teachers who are “just there for a paycheck.”

“I live across the street from 194,” one mother, Melissia Daley, wrote of P.S. 194, a Harlem elementary school that would have been closed under the city’s original plan. “Although it’s a zoned school and very convenient for me and my child, I wouldn’t even try to put my child in there because the children are well behind in grade.”

“If they are closing 241 to put a better school in its place, then they should do that,” one parent, Martinique Owens, said, of another Harlem school, P.S. 241, in a similar situation.

Their statements came in a press release issued this afternoon by a spokeswoman for the Harlem Success Academy network of charter schools, Jenny Sedlis. Two Harlem Success schools were planning to become the sole occupants of the P.S. 194 and P.S. 241 buildings after those schools closed. Those schools will have to continue sharing space with district elementary schools next year. (more…)

At an event with Chancellor Joel Klein and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today, the Rev. Al Sharpton turned his attention instead to another education activist in the room. “Nobody’s supported us more financially than Randi Weingarten,” he declared, speaking at a convention of the education group he runs with Klein.

Sharpton then eyed Weingarten, the union president who was sitting in the audience, and ushered her onto the stage he was sharing with Duncan, Klein, and the local radio personality James Mtume. Weingarten stepped away from her spot in the audience and joined the men on the panel. Weingarten has had a warm relationship with Duncan so far, but she has vocally opposed the Sharpton and Klein’s Education Equality Project, signing onto a rival effort instead.

UPDATE: Weingarten told the Times reports that the union has given about $10,000 a year to Sharpton over the last eight years.

The remarks came one day after the Daily News reported that he accepted a $50,000 $500,000 donation before working with Klein on the project that won them the title of “odd couple.” Sharpton had kicked off the day, the first in a two-day convention his and Klein’s group is throwing, with a warning. “I want some substantive discussion,” he said before introducing Duncan and Klein to the stage. “But if you think this is your night for Star Time at the Apollo, the Apollo is on 125th Street.”

The rest of the event contained only the barest allusion to the Daily News column, by Juan Gonzalez. (more…)

Charter schools will not have to pay union wages on construction projects, as New York’s Department of Labor had ordered them to do, a state appeals court ruled today.

The decision follows a tussle in which the state ordered that schools pay their janitors and construction workers union wages, causing an angry uproar among the schools’ leaders, who said the high wages would have been impossible for them to afford and could have jeopardized their ability to expand into new buildings.

The Department of Labor began asking charter schools to pay the union wage in September of 2007, but a group of charter schools in Albany and in the Bronx filed a lawsuit challenging the decision. A state supreme court upheld the decision last May, but the plaintiffs appealed, and this new decision overturns the supreme court’s.

Charter schools are publicly funded, but operate outside the regular Department of Education bureaucracy. The appeals court concluded that the schools are “inapplicable” to the law requiring that certain public entities that hold contracts with workers pay what is known as the “prevailing wage,” or the union wage.

Charter school supporters cheered the decision. “This is a victory for charter schools, which are under tremendous financial pressure to meet increasing expenses with less funding,” Bill Phillips, the president of the New York Charter Schools Association and a co-plaintiff in the case, said in a statement.

Charter school supporters say they are on the brink of a victory in their battle to restore about $1,000 per student in funds that lawmakers tugged out of next year’s state budget. They expect that Malcolm Smith, the State Senate majority leader, will restore the funds to charter schools through a last-minute appropriation of Senate funds.

“We’re hoping that Senator Smith will be able to, through his good offices, get our funding restored,” said James Merriman, the executive director of the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence.

The message comes after charter schools spent the last two days badgering Smith, whom they had counted as a strong ally. One Queens school that says it is slated to face a $600,000 cut held a rally, while others sent in form letters to Smith declaring, “We thought you were a supporter of charter schools. This budget betrays that support.” Charter lobbyists also rushed out e-mails urging “parents, trustees, and supporters” to call Governor Paterson and Smith asking for help.

But the charter lobbyists reversed their position on Tuesday afternoon, sending out an e-mail declaring that the efforts had paid off. The full text of their letter is below the jump.

A spokeswoman for Smith did not return a phone call immediately today.

Merriman said he can’t 100 percent guarantee that Smith will fill the funding gaps. “He hasn’t told me, but we’re certainly hoping that he will do everything he can,” he said. (more…)

The Department of Education is dropping its bid to close three zoned elementary schools and replace them with charter schools, GothamSchools has learned. School officials informed the schools today about their uncharacteristic about face, which comes a week after the teachers union and a group of parents sued the DOE on the grounds that the plan to close the elementary schools represented an illegal alteration of zone lines.

The three schools, PS 241 and PS 194 in Harlem and PS 150 in Brownsville, will enroll new students in the fall, John White, director of the department’s portfolio office, confirmed. The DOE will phase out middle school grades at PS 241 and PS 150 as planned, White said, because the districts where those schools are located do not have zoned middle schools.

White emphasized that parents will still be able to choose to send their children to charter schools. All of the charter schools that were supposed to replace the zoned elementary schools will continue to expand inside DOE space, he said. The charter schools will either share space with the existing elementary schools, as in the case of PS 150, which is getting two schools that are part of the Uncommon Schools network, or they will remain in their current spaces. The latter option is possible for Harlem Success Academy 2, which is currently located inside PS 123. (more…)

Basketball players from two New York City high school campuses. Via Flickr

I have to admit that I pay more attention to high school quality than to high school sports. But apparently it’s a matter of consensus among high school basketball aficionados that New York City was once, but is no longer, the undisputed epicenter of the sport. A long article in The New Republic, the magazine about politics, tries to explain why the city schools no longer produce top prospects.

One reason is that basketball simply isn’t a defining element of the city’s youth culture anymore, writes Jason Zengerle in the article, which focuses on Lance Stephenson, a senior from Coney Island who just led his team, the Abraham Lincoln High School Railsplitters, its fourth straight city championship.

Another problem, according to a recruiter that Zengerle interviewed, is the proliferation of small high schools in the city:

Not only were good players now leaving New York for New Jersey and for prep schools, but the ones who were staying were being spread too thinly across the city. He mentioned that last year there were 180 varsity boys basketball teams in the PSAL. “Banana Kelly is the name of one school,” Konchalski said. “Urban Peace is the name of another one. Shouldn’t that be a given? Urban Peace? Who’s their rival? Guerrilla Warfare?” It was impossible to cover that many teams with quality coaches, not to mention quality teammates.

One additional note: The city’s Public School Athletics League fielded 180 varsity teams last year — but there are far, far more than 180 high schools. Some campuses with multiple small schools inside have teams that draw players from all of the schools in the building, but there are still many high schools whose students don’t have the option to play competitive sports. I have spoken with many eighth-graders at small high schools who say the biggest downside of their school is the lack of sports and other traditional elements of student life, such as a wide range of after-school clubs.

• Joe Biden will be at the Sharpton-Klein convention today, a “coup,” Errol Louis says.
• To get next stimulus, states must release data on performance and teacher evaluation. (Times, WSJ)
• Comptroller and mayoral candidate Thompson said DOE spends wildly. (Times, Post, GS)
• Bloomberg’s campaign replied that Thompson did worse at the old Board of Ed. (Daily News)
• One contentious point: The DOE replaced local biz owners for out-of-state ones. (NY1, WNYC)
• Eli Broad, in a video, explains what Ed in 08 did accomplish: Persuading Obama. (WaPost)
• The rise of charters in Rochester is forcing the city to open nontraditional schools. (City Newspaper)
• The Columbia noose scandal rises again. (Post)

The New York Post‘s campaign for continued mayoral control of the New York City schools got a boost yesterday from a trio of puff pieces by reporter Carl Campanile.  You could tie a rock to these stories and they’d still float away.  skoolboy’s favorite is about the Leadership Academy, the “corporate-style” principal training program “inspired” by Mayor Mike Bloomberg.  Founded in 2003, and supported by $80 million in tax-exempt donations over the past five years, the Leadership Academy’s Aspiring Principal Program has trained several hundred school leaders.  Campanile’s article states that there have been 336 graduates of the program, and that, as of January, 228 are principals, with an additional 80 or so working in other leadership positions in the DOE.

You could derive an average cost per principal by dividing the $80 million by the 288 working principals—about $350,000—but not all of the Leadership Academy’s expenditures have been on the Aspiring Principal Program.  The Leadership Academy also provides support for first-year principals, technical support for principals opening new schools, and coaching for new and experienced principals.  Still, the raison d’etre for the Leadership Academy is preparing new principals, and any evaluation of the program would likely focus on the effectiveness of the program in preparing new principals, and the costs of doing so. (more…)

• Think stimulus talk can’t make you squirm? Try watching the Fordham Institute’s April Fool’s video.
• Charter schools got slightly higher progress report grades, but much higher scores, Ken Hirsh reports.
• Insideschools found out how many seats are left at some unfilled high schools: not enough.
• Norm Scott: The Education Equality Project money trail shows mayoral control isn’t free from corruption.
• Arne Duncan officially released education stimulus money today — and guidelines about how to spend it.
• At the American Prospect, Dana Goldstein asks if merit pay isn’t a reform-y red herring.
• Pissed Off Teacher wants to change the education world, but she says she can’t do it alone.
• Rhode Island is shaping up to be the next battleground for education reform.
• The principal who praised the DOE today has done so before, NYC Public School Parents points out.
• On the UFT’s blog, a new teacher explains why he rallied for tax reform instead of relaxing.