GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is pushing back against opposition to the city’s proposed school construction plan, saying there is no way for the council legally to vote it down.

Quinn met today with about 30 parents who lambaste the plan as too conservative and an ineffective remedy to overcrowding. The parents are urging council members to vote against the plan when it comes up for a vote, probably on Friday.

But Quinn said the city’s chief lawyer has advised her that the state law governing the city public schools does not contain provisions for what to do if the council votes the plan down.

“We have been informed by the Corporation Counsel of the City that if we were to vote no, the [Department of Education] would effectively be left with no long-term capital budget,” Quinn wrote in a letter to the parents yesterday. In that situation, school construction could grind to a standstill, she said.

The law she was referring to, Section 4 of Education Law Section 2590-p, says, “Following approval by the city board of a five-year educational facilities capital plan, the chancellor shall submit such plan to the mayor and the council of the city of New York for their approval.” (more…)

ALBANY, N.Y. — After roughly an hour of debate, the State Assembly overwhelmingly voted to extend mayoral control until 2015 today, tossing the bill into the lap of a fractured and fractious Senate.

The bill, which was introduced by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver last Sunday, renews the current system of school governance, but with minor changes. It maintains the core of mayoral control, authorizing the mayor to appoint the majority of the 13 members to the citywide school board and giving him latitude to dismiss board members at his pleasure.

The bill does include some checks on the mayor’s power, such as beefed up oversight of the Department of Education’s data, and the requirement that all no-bid contracts over $1 million be approved by the PEP.

Before the vote, Assembly members rose and offered their own opinions on the bill, many of which followed the simple formula of praising mayoral control as a system of school governance, stating they would vote for the bill, and then listing their concerns. Many described the bill as imperfect but said they were satisfied that it addressed issues of transparency and parental involvement.

“Am I completely happy with it? Of course not,” said Assemblyman Peter Rivera. “But I think it’s a great beginning.” (more…)

The high school report released today shows that the Gates Foundation’s support for small schools was worthwhile, according to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

His statement contrasts with the foundation’s own evaluation of its small schools spending, which it said last year had not produced the academic gains it had hoped. Bill Gates himself said in November that while New York City’s small schools have done better than others his foundation started, the schools still do not adequately prepare students for college.

Delivering introductory remarks before a panel discussion about small schools this morning, Klein said the Center for New York City Affairs report “confirms the work of the Gates Foundation,” which provided much of the funding that allowed the city to open small schools.

Today’s report ”carefully documents” that the schools have gotten better results than the large schools they replaced, Klein said — and with the same type of students, contrary to the charges by critics who say the small schools’ students start off better prepared. (In the schools’ early years, they enrolled students who were slightly less at-risk, but they now admit their fair share of overage students, students with disabilities, and students who are learning English, the report concludes.)

Despite his generally favorable review, Klein disputed some of the report’s findings, especially around graduation rates. (more…)

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s mayoral control bill passed the Assembly 121-18 just now, our Anna Phillips reports to us from Albany. The bill would continue the mayor’s control of the schools until 2015, with some added checks, including strengthened audit powers over Department of Education data.

All eyes now move to the state Senate, where the new Democratic leader, John Sampson, is vowing to fight for more checks to the mayor’s power.

UPDATE: Anna sends in the no votes. They are Alan Maisel, Hakeem Jeffries, Carl Heastie, Jeffrey Dinowitz, Joseph Abbate, William Colton, James Brennan, Mark Weprin, Jose Rivera, Naomi Rivera, Jeffrion Aubry, Daniel O’Donnell, Annette Robinson, Deborah Glick, Vanessa Gibson, Nick Perry, Marcos Crespo, Nelson Castro. Inez Barron did not vote, and Rory Lancman voted yes.

Lancman had been leading the charge to make the Department of Education both a state and city agency, a revision that is not included in Silver’s bill.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Cornered outside of the press offices this morning, State Senator-turned-Democratic-Conference-Leader John Sampson said he was still planning to push his own school governance bill.

Asked whether he would support Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s plan, Sampson said that while the Democrats still had to discuss Silver’s bill, he wants “to put forth” the bill that he supported: the “Better Schools Act.” The bill would end the mayor’s ability to appoint the majority of the 13 members of the Panel for Educational Policy.

“I would like to … look at their bill and look at our bill and see if there can be some compromise,” he said.

Asked whether the Democrats were going to allow the bill to expire without a vote, Sampson replied, “You shouldn’t ask us that question, you should ask Senator Skelos that question. You know, we’ve got to come to some sort of agreement, so until then, as I would say, to be continued.”

Asked what would happen if the Assembly passed the bill and then left Albany, Sampson said: “If we are out of town,we can’t make any changes, therefore you have no school governance.”

Senator Bill Perkins, another supporter of the “Better Schools Act” said last night he was optimistic that the Senate would be able to insert fixed terms into the bill. Of Silver’s bill, he said: “From what I heard, it’s not something that I would want to vote for.”

• A new report says the city’s small schools hurt large ones. (GothamSchools, Times, Daily News, Post)
• Randi Weingarten might soon announce that she is leaving the city teachers union on Aug. 1. (Newsday)
• Mayor Bloomberg says if the Senate doesn’t act, he will let the courts decide mayoral control. (Post)
• Many DOE employees aren’t happy about the city’s budget deal that doesn’t save their jobs. (NY1)
• More details on the brewing repeat space-sharing fight at PS 15 in Red Hook. (Brooklyn Paper)
• Some affluent California towns are taxing themselves to help their schools. (Wall Street Journal)
• But it’s the urban schools that have been hit hardest by budget cuts, and no one is helping them. (NPR)

The city’s drive to open new small high schools has taken a serious toll on older, larger schools, and there are signs that the new schools’ success could be short-lived, according to a report being released today.

The report, an analysis of the small schools bonanza by the Center for New York City Affairs, concludes that the city must do more to support large high schools, which continue to enroll the vast majority of city high school students despite the proliferation of small schools, and which are straining under the burden of enrolling the system’s neediest students. 

At the core of the report is the finding that as small schools opened, large schools nearby suffered huge jumps in enrollment, especially among low-performing students and students with special needs. Those schools have seen attendance decline, disorder increase, and graduation rates drop, according to the report. In some places, these shifts have caused the city to restructure the newly troubled large schools, displacing at-risk students once again, the report concludes.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein told researchers that he understands that his strategy of closing low-performing schools and replacing them with new options could inflict some collateral damage on large high schools. “This is about improving the system, not necessarily about improving every single school,” he said about the strategy at the center of his reforms since he took office in 2003.

The report backs up the city’s claim that the small schools graduate their students in higher numbers, but it raises questions about how long the schools can sustain their success. (more…)

• Details on a budget deal between Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council emerge.
• Diane Ravitch: “The Obama agenda is the Republican agenda with a smile” and $100 billion.
• Checker Finn criticized the critical guide to Bloomberg’s schools, and now he’s paying.
• Most New York teachers oppose national standards, finds a union poll (52% pro; 32% con).
• Insideschools offers a rundown of the city’s newest transfer high schools.
• A Queens teacher writes in our Community section about life at an overcrowded school.
• Tom Vander Ark gives some back story to the Gates-backed “Early College” initiative.
• The way we’re following Iran news shows we all have to be editors now, especially teachers.
• The Harvard ed school will make all faculty articles available online, for free.
• Barone rounds up blogosphere coverage of the new arts NAEP scores.
• Why didn’t names like Diane Ravitch and Randi Weingarten weigh in on the scores?
• A new citywide G&T program, the one with that principal, is closing before it opened.
• Drew Carey, who’s with Reason TV, visits Locke HS, Steve Barr’s turnaround attempt in LA.
• A financial crisis at the Indiana teachers union is forcing the union to lay off employees.
• Sen. Tom Coburn is including school spending as some of the wastefulness in the stimulus.
• And Insideschools really could shut down without a surge of help. We try not to editorialize, but this is bad for the city. Please consider donating.

ALBANY, NY — One branch of the state government is functioning today. Lawmakers in the Assembly pushed Silver’s mayoral control bill through the ways and means committee this afternoon, readying the bill for a final vote tomorrow.

The bill immediately passed with no discussion. At least three Assembly members voted against Silver’s plan, including Mark Weprin and Jeff Aubry of Queens and Deborah Glick of Manhattan.

Aubry said he was concerned that the bill did not place fixed terms on members of the citywide school board and that it gives the mayor a majority of the appointees to the Panel for Educational Policy. Both he and Glick are supporters of the “Better Schools Act.”

Tomorrow, the Assembly will vote on the bill, and even its most vocal critics agree that its passage is guaranteed.

UPDATE 2 (from Elizabeth): Billy Easton of the Campaign for Better Schools points out that nothing is final, even if the Assembly bill passes. “Tomorrow is an Assembly vote on their initial proposal,” he said. “That does not mean that that’s the final vote that they will take on this matter. We have to see what unfolds.” Easton added that lobbyists for the campaign are meeting with members from both the Assembly and the Senate.

Exactly how negotiations between the two houses will unfold, however, is almost impossible to figure out. Anna reports from Albany that she only persuaded one senator to talk to her about mayoral control today — and his response was to say, “It can’t stay the way it is,” and walk away laughing. (more…)

Eighth-graders at the Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School spent June 5-13 in Costa Rica. Between zip line and beach fun, they helped build a biodigester.