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Rev. Al Sharpton (Via Creative Commons)

Rev. Al Sharpton is scheduled to host a key critic of mayoral control on his radio show tomorrow morning, in what will be the same talk that he postponed last week.

The importance of parental input in decisions about public schools will be a main topic, said Zakiyah Ansari, a parent organizer and member of the Campaign for Better Schools who will be Sharpton’s guest. A press notice about the talk says that Sharpton will join Ansari in calling on state lawmakers to build parental input into a new school governance law.

Ansari told me on the phone today that she hopes to form a “partnership” with Sharpton on the issue, though she said she’s not sure exactly what such a collaboration would entail.

Sharpton has previously said that he clashes with a more concrete partner of his, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, on the issue of mayoral control, favoring more checks and balances than Klein. The two together formed the Education Equality Project, a national advocacy network that pushes changes to public schools of the sort Klein has promoted in New York City.

But this could all get trickier if Sharpton ends up formalizing a partnership with Ansari’s group, too. The thing to watch will be exactly what kinds of changes to the 2002 mayoral control law Sharpton endorses.

Details on tomorrow’s radio show are below the jump: (more…)

We’ve reported that people are upset with Randi Weingarten for her school governance position. But we haven’t reported the various reasons they’re suggesting for why the teachers union president is not joining mayoral control’s fiercest critics in their push for major changes to the law.

Arthur Goldstein, a teacher who was recently elected to be the union chapter leader for his Queens school, speculated that President Obama’s preference for mayoral control could have influenced Weingarten. “It could indeed be that Randi sees this is the way this is going and Randi is deciding to go with the flow,” he said. He added, “But it is actually her job to move the flow in our direction,” referring to the teachers Weingarten represents.

Other people I spoke to said the evolution of Weingarten’s position on whether the mayor should control the majority of seats on the city school board could reflect a political calculation intended to improve the union’s position for this fall, when it must negotiate a new contract. The contract variable is unique to the United Federation of Teachers among all groups who have made recommendations about how to improve school governance.

“Nobody else has changed since their initial proposals,” said Lisa Donlan, a parent activist from Manhattan. “But nobody else is in a contract negotiation position.” (more…)

Did teachers union president Randi Weingarten really switch her position on mayoral control? I reviewed exactly what she said when she first introduced the union’s position in February, courtesy of my notes from her briefing to reporters.

She laid out two main checks on the mayor’s power. Here’s the first (the emphasis is mine):

Probably the biggest difference between this report and what you’ve seen thus far and what the mayor would argue is to have an independent – to have some more representatives on the policy board so that for the mayor to have a policy that he or she wants adopted, he or she would have to convince a couple more people. Not simply his or her representatives. And the couple more people that he or she would have to convince are people who are already elected as representatives of the people, whether it be the City Council speaker whether it be the public advocate whether it be a city comptroller. That’s really the change: Trying to figure out an institutional check and balance so that things don’t go awry.

Later, a reporter asked Weingarten if the proposal was a bargaining position. She suggested that it wasn’t. (more…)

• The Equity Project Charter School handpicked its first teachers, who will earn $125,000 each. (Times)
• Mayoral control came under attack at a City Council hearing yesterday. (GothamSchools, Post, NY1)
• A new Brooklyn charter school is still looking for space. (Daily News, but you read it here first)
• Merryl Tisch says she doesn’t have a position on mayoral control, and the Daily News says she’s right.
• The City Council okayed a divisive DUMBO building that will include school space. (Brooklyn Paper)
• Charter schools, including some in New York, were praised on Capitol Hill yesterday. (Post)
• A Riverdale elementary school has a newly restored planetarium. (Daily News)
• Some schools are giving number grades instead of letter grades. (Chicago Tribune)
• Jay Mathews describes a tutoring program that a random study says is working. (Washington Post)
• Private children’s services providers are struggling, too. (Downtown Express)
• An official from a South Carolina university says the school manipulated data to look good. (USA Today)

• Norm Scott says that his dissatisfaction with Randi on mayoral control predated the Post op/ed.
• A Bronx teacher compares a sign at a prison to a sign inside his school.
• Pissed Off Teacher spent her P.D. day foregoing ballroom dancing and taking photos instead.
• The New York teachers union is urging members to fight threats to its pension plan.
• Arne Duncan’s listening tour will move to Newark tomorrow, to a charter school.
• Missed today’s congressional hearing on charter schools? Twitter will catch you up.
• In his testimony, Steve Barr of Green Dot suggested Congress make private schools illegal.
• Joel Klein’s favorite Clay Christensen opposes putting money into struggling schools. (Via Joanne Jacobs.)
• A Columbus, Ohio, plan will use value-added data about teachers to pay high performers more.
• Michelle Obama explains to NBC’s Brian Williams why she likes to meet with young students.
• Richard Dreyfuss is advertising a civics curriculum by religiously avoiding the word civics.
• Apparently Rothko was a kindergarten teacher! This kind of explains everything.
• The Gates Foundation lost nearly $10 billion since 2007. Its CEO says the foundation needs improvement.
• Established education groups like school boards are resisting efforts to send stimulus money to pre-K.
• Detroit could get mayoral control of schools, if a state lawmaker has his way. (Via Flypaper.)

A City Council hearing today on mayoral control became a chance for a chief critic of the power structure to lay out his concerns — a kind of last stand as top lawmakers and advocates move to a more moderate compromise.

The state’s top two lawmakers have embraced keeping a majority of power with the mayor, and their statements led union president Randi Weingarten to back away from a push to yank that majority.

But Council member Robert Jackson, who chairs the education committee and served on his district’s community school board for 15 years, did not appear to be affected by the changing tide at today’s hearing.

For more than six hours, he fielded testimony from people explaining how they have been hurt under mayoral control: schools phased out without consultation from the Department of Education, charter schools operating with better supplies than traditional public schools, and the powerless feeling of serving on the new generation of school boards, Community Education Councils.

Few expressed support for the current system. During cross examinations, Jackson offered his own criticism of mayoral control. At times, he could barely restrain his frustration.

“Talk is cheap,” he told Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, saying he had requested information from the DOE several months ago and had yet to obtain it.

“I wish you’d pick up the phone and call me,” Klein responded.

“I should not have to pick up the phone! It’s a continuous problem,” Jackson shot back. (more…)

Note what's at risk at your school on this map.

At schools across the city, principals are struggling right to trim nearly 5 percent from their school budgets by June 18. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has said that schools will have to cut deep into their extracurricular programming, and some will even have to reduce the number of teachers they employ. But the depth of cuts at the school-by-school level isn’t yet clear.

We’re trying to bring some clarity to the dismal budget picture by documenting how the cuts are affecting individual schools. We’ve just launched a groundbreaking interactive comment map so readers can help us paint a comprehensive picture of the toll budget cuts are taking at schools across the city.

Here’s how the map works: When you add a comment, you’ll be prompted to enter a location. Use the address of your school, or an intersection near it. Then describe the budget cut situation at your school: Will there be fewer teachers working at your school next year? Is your school going to be without an after-school program, music classes, or extra tutoring for struggling students? Is your principal asking community members for advice about what to cut? We want to know it all. Be sure to include the name of your school in your comment. Comments will be ordered by date, so you can update your contribution as the situation changes.

The map was developed by a crack team of programmers at The Open Planning Project, where GothamSchools is housed.

Please note: Comments on this post are closed, because we want you to attach your comments to the interactive map!

An excerpt from the Brooklyn Eagle's 1896 Children's Day report

Across the city, kids are staying home today for an odd mid-week day off, while their teachers are reporting for duty. The reason: A professional development day that was created in the current teachers’ contract to replace an antiquated celebration called Brooklyn-Queens Day.

Celebrated until 2006, Brooklyn-Queens Day grew out of parades held in the two boroughs in the 19th century to honor Sunday School teachers at local churches. On the first Thursday in June, schools were closed so that children could march through the streets, wearing their Sunday best and singing the praises of their religious school teachers. The Brooklyn Eagle counted 78,000 children participating in 1896, when the governor made an appearance to view the procession. The state legislature officially made the day a holiday in 1905 for Brooklyn and 1959 for Queens.

But by 1991, according to the New York Times, no one could quite remember why some students got an extra day off in early June. The teachers contract that went into effect in 2005 officially ended the tradition, extending the day off to students across the city but requiring teachers to use the day to plan their lessons. The Department of Education’s online calendar emphasizes that today is a professional development day for teachers “IN ALL FIVE BOROUGHS” (the capital letters are the department’s).

At least some schools are still in session today. They are all charter schools, which do not have to adhere to the public school calendar. I heard from a staff member at a charter school who said, “No time for Brooklyn-Queens Day — we’ve got TerraNovas to take!” The staff member was referring to standardized tests that some schools use to assess their students.

• Randi Weingarten’s mayoral control position is making parents and teachers angry. (GothamSchools)
• At Eagle Academy in the Bronx, teachers say they were asked to change kids’ grades. (Daily News)
• Details mount about the Harlem principal who passed out an inflammatory survey to teachers. (Post)
• A look at some of the students who could be the last to graduate in D.C.’s voucher program. (Post)
• Two charter school operators say the math scores mean charters have been proven successful. (Post)
• The Wall Street Journal says people need to stop undermining New York City’s school reforms.
• Some extremely gifted kids turn to special schools for an academic challenge. (Education Week)
• City students are helping design a new pedestrian-only plaza in Times Square. (NY1)
• The U.S. military is in talks with a number of school districts to open military-style schools. (AP)
• The claim that states build prisons based on student test scores is probably bogus. (Washington Post)
• A 100 Black Men conference next week will focus on education issues. (Post)

• Sens. Savino and Parker praise mayoral control in reaction to the math test scores.
• Ed Notes chronicles a teacher’s interminable termination hearing.
• Eduwonk says national standards could work, unless everyone signs on.
• Teachable Moment says the real question is what happens once the standards are in place.
• Democrats go after Arne Duncan’s budget and proposed shift in Title I spending.
• Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) leads the Title I criticism.
• Analysts warn that PISA assessments are not error-proof when it comes to judging progress.
• An San Francisco principal is found not legally responsible for a bullied student’s suicide.
• A British study shows that the more extracurriculars schools offer, the better their kids do on tests.
• The number of newly-qualified Scottish teachers finding full-time work has plummeted.
• A principal asks her students to grade their teachers’ blogs.
• And TIME includes “teacher” in its list of the 10 best jobs for the recession.