GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Leonie Haimson points out that the Quinnipiac poll’s mayoral control questions have evolved over time.
• Insideschools’ Chrissy Strining rounds up the dozens of school moves taking place this summer.
• If you use this 30-percent-off coupon at several clothing stores this week, DonorsChoose profits.
• Librarians are lobbying for an ice cream flavor. I vote for Writer’s Block, sans nicotine. (Hat tip to Russo)
• As long as we’re doing happy birthdays, I’m sending one to Dana Goldstein at the American Prospect.
• The concept of funding equity is missing from federal education reform initiatives, Goldstein observes.
• Andy Wolf praises the state’s ed chief pick and says he hopes David Steiner toughens standards.
• The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools wants a Cash for Clunkers program for schools. 
• Teach for America et al are needed because school districts just aren’t good at hiring, Rotherham says.
• NYC Educator: “Goodbye to Ms. Weingarten and hello to Thu Tran.” Seriously, click this link.
• If at first you can’t preserve vouchers in D.C., try, try again. That’s what the Senate’s doing.
• Jay Mathews says SAT scores are meaningless, but he’s also worried about their accuracy.
• Golfer Tom Watson as a symbol for the need to keep older teachers around and involved.
• On the TA question, a teacher argues that leveling the playing field by lowering it isn’t great for kids.
• Jon Becker: Gifted education is a form of “within-school segregation,” by ability and race.

Earlier this week, the New York Civil Liberties Union held a debate among the candidates for public advocate, moderated by Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News. Gonzalez quizzed the five candidates about mayoral control — the following are their responses (video courtesy of the NYCLU). Next Tuesday the organization is co-hosting a debate for the mayoral candidates.

Bill de Blasio said the issue is “very personal” for him, citing his children, who attend public schools, and his service on a school board. “I think we need profound reform of mayoral control,” he said, but did not go into specifics.

“I’m offended at any effort to reduce the democratic participation of parents in our school system. I believe there’s a way to do mayoral control right. I think there are virtues in the system if there is transparency, if there are clear checks and balances, if there is a forum for actual debate, if there is a role for communities and for local residents and for parents.” (more…)

The principal of the city’s most elite elementary school departed suddenly this summer, leaving the school without a permanent leader as it prepares to open in a new location.

Brian Culot, principal of the Anderson School since 2006, announced just as school was ending for the summer that he would not return this fall. Instead, he is taking over at Cottage Lane Elementary School in Blauvelt, N.Y., which is near his Rockland County home.

“It was a shock,” said Judi Aronson, until today Anderson’s network leader in the empowerment schools organization. As the community superintendent for District 3 in the 2005-2006 school year, Aronson helped bring Culot to Anderson from a downtown elementary school.

Culot’s announcement came at a particularly tumultuous time for the school, which was preparing to move seven blocks south into the MS 44 building on the Upper West Side. (more…)

Camila Diaz, 17, received a full ride to college from the Leonore Annenberg College Scholarship Fund.

Camila Diaz’s summer plans are crammed with the kinds of activities zealous parents schedule for high school juniors.

First there was College Summit, a college application program at Yale, then the LEAD business program at Stanford, and then she’s off to the Dominican Republic to spend time with her family and, of course, study for her SATs.

“That’s Camila,” said her principal at the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, Edward Tom. “She’s a planner. She’s probably been thinking about college since she was 5.”

Diaz, 17, is one of five high school juniors nationwide who will receive a full college scholarship from the Leonore Annenberg College Scholarship Fund. She is the only New Yorker among them. All New Visions-affiliated schools were encouraged to nominate two students for the award, which goes to academically successful high school juniors who have faced serious challenges.

Diaz plans to apply early action to either Stanford or Yale — colleges, she said, that have strong economics departments and require all students to take certain classes. “I wanted some guidelines in what I had to take,” she said, adding that she’d like to work in finance. (more…)

The choice of David M. Steiner as New York State’s new education commissioner could mark a new direction in school policies. 

Dr. Steiner, the Dean of the School of Education at Hunter College, is positioned to change the policies that have been very rewarding to politicians and school boards, but have shortchanged children in our state.

New York, like many other states, has been engaging in wholesale grade inflation of standardized tests. This is driven by the constant pressure of making “annual yearly progress” to conform with the federal “No Child Left Behind Law,” which demands the impossible result of all students performing at grade level by 2014.

Since we are dealing with human children, this is a highly unlikely outcome. And since the federal government foolishly allowed the states to set their own standards, many states, including ours, have engaged in what can only be described as deceptive practices: making the tests easier, changing the scoring scale to provide better results, and in some cases both.

Politicians love higher scores because they imply higher student performance that reflects well on them. Much of Mayor Bloomberg’s advertising campaign hinges on these soaring scores. But inflated scores don’t mean our children are any smarter. (more…)

As mayor, City Councilman Tony Avella would undo Mayor Bloomberg’s trademark school funding program, Avella told GothamSchools in a an exclusive interview.

Currently, the city uses a program called Fair Student Funding to give schools money based on the needs of the students they serve. Under Fair Student Funding, a school with more students scoring at the lowest level on state tests would get more money than a school where the majority of students are meet the standards for proficiency, for example. (more…)

• After budget cuts, 2,400 teachers are now without positions. (GothamSchools, Post, Daily News)
• Chancellor Klein is urging principals to start hiring those teachers. (GothamSchools, Times)
• A new plan should let parent-paid aides stay in the schools. (GothamSchools, Times, Daily News)
• The DOE’s expensive IT firm doesn’t pay its workers much, Juan Gonzalez reports. (Daily News)
• The city is working on next year’s admissions plan for overcrowded schools now. (Downtown Express)
• The State Senate is set to vote on mayoral control next week. (GothamSchools, Daily News, Post, NY1)
• The school where the principal allegedly kicked a teacher has a new principal. (Post, Insideschools)
• The Times says Race to the Top needs improvements but represents “an important step forward.”
• Texas educators are pushing for a voluntary hiring ban on dropouts. (Dallas Morning News)
• Applications to alternative certification teaching programs jumped this year. (Washington Post)
• Australia is launching 50 model schools to train top-notch teachers. (The Australian)

• The Kurt Hahn Expeditionary Learning School launched its online newspaper today.
• Whatever happened to “No Child Left Behind”?
• Mayor Bloomberg isn’t ruling out a fourth term. That is, if his newly permitted third term works out.
• Wayne Barrett: It’s time for audit-happy William Thompson to start behaving like a mayoral candidate.
• Bronx Borough President calls on Bloomberg to add Muslim holidays to the school year.
• Peer review should be a component of how teachers get tenure, a teacher argues.
• NBC gives more than $400,000 to seven New York nonprofits focusing on 6-12 education.
• Queens will get its first-ever French dual language program this September.
• Duncan says Sonia Sotomayor’s mother should be a model for Latino parents.
• An effort to boost the Teacher Incentive fund by $100 million failed today.
• Jay Greene says senators may be closing in an agreement to reauthorize the D.C. voucher program.
• Andrew Rotherham wonders if NCLB and health care’s fate are inversely related.
• And Arthur Goldstein asks why PS 123 students don’t get the same treatment as HSA students.

Parent-paid teaching assistants may be able to keep their jobs for at least another year under a tentative agreement reached today by parents and city officials.

The proposed solution came from schools chancellor Joel Klein, who recommended that teaching assistants who are hired and paid for by parent associations be renamed “substitute school aides.” Though the change appears to be cosmetic, the new job title allows parents to bypass the citywide hiring freeze and retain their current employees at a similar salary to what they’ve paid for years.

According to Department of Education officials, calling parent-paid support staff “substitute school aides,”  would allow them to work under D.C. 37 union rules, rather than those of the teachers union (though they would not be D.C. 37 members). Under the D.C. 37 contract, substitute school aides are paid about $12 per hour and are not given benefits — conditions that mirror their current work situation. Parent associations can pay them throughout the year, rather than having to collect all the money before school starts, as some had worried. Were these employees to become members of the teachers union, they would have to be paid significantly more and receive benefits, which few parent associations say they can afford to offer. (more…)

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein warned of “unacceptable financial consequences” today if principals do not accelerate their hiring.

In an e-mail today, Klein encouraged principals to list and fill their open positions as soon as possible to help reduce the number of teachers without jobs. If a principal can’t pay for a teacher, the teacher goes into a pool of “excessed” teachers whose salaries are paid by the department. If the size of the pool swells, the department could end up shouldering thousands of teachers’ salaries — all while the teachers aren’t officially on a school’s staff.

Klein emphasized that principals should plan to fill their vacancies with teachers who already work in the system, especially the more than 2,300 who currently lack a permanent position. “You should be aware that excessing conditions make it unlikely that we will lift hiring restrictions across the board,” he wrote. Restrictions have been lifted in a handful of specific license areas, most recently in special education, where the hiring freeze was lifted yesterday.

Some have speculated that principals might try to evade the hiring restrictions by not listing their open positions publicly before the “open market” period of teacher hiring ends next week.

“That’s maybe what some of them were trying to do and that’s why we had Joel send out the e-mail today,” said Photo Anagnastopoulos, the department’s chief operating officer. (more…)