GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Contrary to the Post’s report, Senate Dems are not weighing a mayoral control deal. (GothamSchools)
• Only two Board of Education members have children, and those kids are out of school. (Village Voice)
• The city registers an uptick in family homelessness each summer. (Times)
• The Boston Globe is calling for more charter schools and increased power for officials to close schools.

• Mayor Bloomberg slammed senators again for letting mayoral control expire.
• He also instituted a hiring freeze that will affect school safety officers and crossing guards.
• A new social networking web site launches for New York City teachers.
• It includes videos of rubber room members’ family explaining the toll.
• Bon Jovi wouldn’t have gotten the reception Linda Darling-Hammond did at NEA.
• John Thompson offers a good roundup of recent writings on how to turn schools around.
• A teacher suggests ways to make test prep interesting — for both students and teacher.
• If a student admits illegal drinking on Facebook and friends you, do you turn her in? (Via Joanne Jacobs.)
• A push for teachers union finances to board the transparency bus. Openness could help teachers.
• Maybe we should say “transform” rather than “reform” schools. “Turnaround” is also problematic.
• Preschool parents and teachers shouldn’t be afraid of math; they should teach more of it.
• Nat’l Journal asks about mayoral control. Harold Levy and Randi: cautiously optimistic. Arne loves.
• How Sesame Street explains the American Revolution. (Remember the show dropped in the ranks.)
• And Richard Kessler praises a state senator — for boosting arts education.

Reports that a deal has been reached on mayoral control have been exaggerated, according to sources in Albany.

The New York Post reported today that Senate Democrats had reached an agreement on mayoral control and would abandon their demands for fixed terms for members of the citywide school board.

But sources in Albany said that no deal had been made and that senators were still haggling over the details. Though most sources said the deal outlined by the Post is likely to happen eventually, they said that until senators found a way to end the gridlock, no agreement could be considered final.

According to the Post, the compromise amounts to the Senators agreeing to vote for the Assembly’s bill, in exchange for an amendment that would be passed later and would provide for more parental involvement in the system.

The article notes that Senator John Sampson, the Democratic conference leader who has led the opposition to reviving mayoral control without substantial changes, has “signed on to the deal.”

“There is no deal yet,” said a source involved with the negotiations. “I think that this won’t get settled until they have a path back into the chamber.” (more…)

It’s not just the city schools that are closed to new hires now. Because of the State Senate’s failure to approve a city tax hike, Mayor Bloomberg has frozen hiring for the entire city starting today. 

Among the people who are not being added to the city’s payroll are 150 school crossing guards and 175 school safety agents who were set to start walking the halls this fall. (There are more than 5,000 safety agents in the school system, and some advocates have said that’s too many.)

Mayor Bloomberg’s school critics are joining up today to protest how little has changed since the mayoral control technically ended last week.

All spring, local activists who oppose mayoral control have been urging people to contact their lawmakers. But after the mayoral control law expired and Bloomberg packed the new Board of Education with his appointees anyway, it became clear that a more powerful protest was needed, according to Jitu Weusi, a longtime activist from Brooklyn.

A protest being held at 5 p.m. today outside Tweed Courthouse, education department headquarters, will highlight widespread opposition to “the mayoral control dictatorship,” Weusi said. He told me that community activists from all five boroughs have signed onto the event.

City Councilman Charles Barron, who has called for Schools Chancellor Joel Klein to be fired, helped organize a planning meeting last week that about 40 people attended, Weusi said. (more…)

When members of a parent council requested to become a community school board last week, they knew it was an unlikely proposition. A Department of Education lawyer has confirmed their suspicions.

The DOE’s general counsel, Michael Best, denied the Community Education Council for District 1′s request in an e-mail, writing that under the pre-2002 law there is “no provision for the Chancellor to appoint the CEC to act as a community school board.”

CEC president Lisa Donlan said she was “really disappointed” but not surprised by the DOE’s decision. “My guess is if they wanted to make us act like school boards and follow the law, they could.”

Donlan and other council members held a meeting on July 1 to tackle the central problem facing CEC members: Under the current law, their group no longer legally exists. Wishing to become a legally recognized body, they voted to request that Chancellor Joel Klein appoint them to a community school board. These boards existed before mayoral control and had significantly more power than the CECs do.

Instead, the Department of Education is planning to continue the Community Education Councils. Best’s e-mail urges the CEC to keep meeting over the summer.

Best’s e-mail (below) also, amusingly, refers to the provisions of “the old law.” As of July 1, it’s current law. (more…)

FROM NEW YORK CITY:

• Senate Dems are ready to approve the Assembly’s governance bill when they go back to work. (Post)
• Or the Senate’s continued stalemate means mayoral control might never be renewed. (Times)
• Parents have less say than ever on the new Board of Education. (Daily News)
• Joel Klein reminded reporters that he’s still in charge of the school system. (Post)
• Some allege that Eva Moskowitz’s Harlem Success charter school broke locks to expand. (Daily News)
• HSA is also stopping a second Harlem school from expanding as planned, critics say. (Daily News)
• Mayor Bloomberg said it’s legal for Sen. John Sampson to sue the schools, but not logical. (Post)
• Bloomberg’s newest campaign ads have him running on his education leadership. (Post)
• A Brooklyn principal accused of playing hooky is back early from vacation. (Post)
• The Post says the schools shouldn’t close for Muslim holidays because kids need more time in class.
• Newsday says the state Board of Regents should not water down high school graduation requirements.
• The Wall Street Journal says outgoing UFT president Randi Weingarten is no innovator at all.
• A state senator describes a boost for arts education hidden in the mayoral control bill. (Gotham Gazette)

AND BEYOND:

• The Times backs Arne Duncan’s push to close dropout factories and bad charter schools.
• Arne Duncan is giving out $2.7 billion in stimulus funds to school districts early. (USA Today)
• Duncan is counting on business leaders to help him enact his favored policies. (Chicago Tribune)
• And Duncan challenged a national teachers union to rethink compensation schemes. (USA Today)
• State ed commissioner Richard Mills, who left last week, had a mixed record. (Albany Times-Union)
• A new online school will be just for girls. (Washington Post)
• Advocacy groups are calling for a federal ban on restraints for disruptive students. (Wall Street Journal)
• Jay Mathews meets Mike Durso, the man principals say taught them what they know. (Washington Post)
• USA Today interviews professor Dan Willingham on what can make learning fun.
• Summer school lunch programs are feeding hungry kids across the country. (Times)
• Teaching is no longer a recession-proof career path. (Wall Street Journal)
• Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp explains her success to strategic thinking. (Times)

• Announcing a (not-so-)new organization, Teachers Unite, to do what the UFT “has failed to do.”
• Getting her autistic son to eat broccoli was a joy, and the result of hard work, for one mom.
• Bloomberg on Klein at WFP event: “Could he have better social skills? We all could, I suppose.”
• Warren Buffett gave the Gates Foundation another $1.25 billion.
• Yes, some NEA teachers booed and hissed when Arne Duncan mentioned merit pay.
• “Darkness at noon” is how Leonie Haimson summarized the Board of Ed meeting.
• More city students are donning cap and gown, but that doesn’t make the diploma meaningful.
• The religious right is opposing an Obama education department pick because he is a gay activist.
• A Native American-centric high school is an example of segregated education in the inner city.
• Brushing up her resume in case Michelle Rhee fires her next: one teacher’s summer goal.
• No Child Left Behind’s tutoring program produced small benefits, studies say.
• Teachers should help define teacher performance, a Green Dot teacher says in an online chat.
• Familiar bromides, David Bloomfield says of the new special education recommendations.
• Wikis can help your school increase collaboration.
• Ruben, our Community section contributor, probably got a job! But is it the right job for him?
• A greatest-hits mix of Arne Duncan’s NEA speech today:

It may be a new day and a new system, but at Tweed the plan for handling mayoral control’s expiration is to act as though it never happened.

When Department of Education officials began considering what the system would look like if mayoral control expired, they envisioned anarchy. (At least when talking to the press.) An internal memo released to reporters described a complete breakdown of the power structure, such that no one would have the legal authority to hire or fire teachers.

That concern appears to have been cast aside. In the days following the law’s expiration, the DOE has tried to make as few changes as possible to the school governance system.

The issue at the heart of the confusion is the legal status of community superintendents. (more…)

Special education advocates are giving early praise to recommendations released today that would transform schools’ approach to students with special needs. The recommendations, which Chancellor Joel Klein endorsed, center on integrating students with special needs into the city’s ongoing school reforms.

Garth Harries, a department official who is starting a new job in New Haven, Conn., on Monday, authored the recommendations following a months-long review of the city’s special education offerings conducted by

Actually implementing the plans will be left to a new top-level administrator who will be responsible for nearly a quarter of the system’s students. Laura Rodriguez, a longtime Bronx educator who currently heads one of the support organizations that principals can choose to join, will become the city’s first Chief Achievement Officer for Special Education and English Language Learners.

Rodriguez will be one of only seven people reporting directly to the chancellor, making the needs of nearly 250,000 disabled students and ELLs “visible and transparent at the cabinet level” for the first time, Klein said. (more…)