GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

New teachers who have wanted to help the city address its severe shortage of science teachers can now be considered for jobs.

Until today, the teachers had been shut out of the system because of a hiring freeze that has limited principals to teachers already working in the city. 

Principals are still limited to current teachers when they hire biology teachers, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Ann Forte. In March, there were 35 biology teachers in the “excess pool,” for teachers already on the system’s payroll, but not hired at a school. The hiring restrictions, in place since early May, were meant to make it more likely for principals to hire teachers in the pool, including those whose positions were lost to budget cuts this spring. The department still has not released information about how many teaching positions were cut this spring.

Last week, the city gave the okay to new teachers whose licenses enable them to teach in District 75, which serves the system’s most disabled students. About 70 Teaching Fellows were affected by that change.

I Teach NYC, the city’s program to attract new teachers, posted about today’s change on Twitter just after 5:30 p.m.

The Senate session scheduled for, well, right now, has been stalled by both parties, which have retreated to discuss what to do about mayoral control, according to Politicker.

Throughout the week, Democratic lawmakers have offered conflicting clues to the bill’s fate, and their forecasts soured after meeting with two of Mayor Bloomberg’s deputy mayors last night.

Senator John Sampson, the Democratic conference leader, told a Daily News reporter that he has “no idea” what will happen with mayoral control today. Senator Carl Kruger, never one for subtlety, told Politicker that the Assembly’s school governance bill, which preserves the bulk of the 2002 law, is “DOA.”

Senate Democrats have said they would vote for the Assembly’s bill, provided that Bloomberg and Senate Republicans agree to pass one of the chapter amendments proposed by Sens. Shirley Huntley, Bill Perkins, Martin Dilan, and Malcolm Smith. And there’s the rub: the mayor and Republican senators oppose all of the bills. (more…)

• The proportion of possible points needed to pass state tests has fallen in recent years. (Daily News)
• The Senate is back to work today but a vote on mayoral control is uncertain. (Times, Daily News, AP)
• On the other hand, mayoral control could be the only big issue taken up today. (Newsday)
• The Times says the Senate should avoid conflict by passing the Assembly’s school governance bill.
• A new study finds the achievement gap closing a bit for young students. (GothamSchools, USA Today)
• Charter school booster James Merriman says New York State has the best charter schools. (Times)
• Parents and teachers are grappling (again) with how much homework is too much. (AP)
• Obama’s community college plan shows a shifting emphasis away from K-12 education. (Times)

• Michelle Rhee says D.C.’s achievement gap will soon be a thing of the past. Petrilli says not so fast.
• City teachers and the DOE’s press chief are squabbling over what it takes to pass the Regents exams.
• The parent commission is urging senators to vote no to the school governance law and its amendments.
• A mother muses about what it means that her daughter is aging up from pre-K to kindergarten.
• Judy Baum has advice for others in the mother’s situation.
• Obama is pledging to boost college completion rates. But what about high school graduation rates?
• Alexander Russo says journalists are letting education sources get in the habit of going off the record.
• Lots of Chicago’s new schools have been started by system vets, but that doesn’t quiet their critics.
• Also in Chicago, preschool programs for kids with special needs are getting cut.
• A teacher gushes over a potential solution to the classroom epidemic of Persistent Dry (marker) Tip.
• Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was vague when describing the Gun-Free School Zones Act.
• Children might get swine flu shots at school this fall.
• Teachers leave schools where they don’t get to play a role in decision-making, a study has found.

One surprising item on Mayor Bloomberg’s list of fulfilled campaign promises was his commitment to lobby the state to pass an anti-bullying law that he has declined to enforce at the city level.

The City Council passed the Dignity for All Students Act in 2004, saying that the city needed to do more to protect students, especially gay students and members of certain religious groups, from harassment. Bloomberg immediately vetoed the act, and then after the council overturned his veto he refused to implement the law.

At the same time, the city says, Bloomberg was lobbying the State Senate and Assembly to pass essentially the same law. “The City continues to support this legislation and submitted a memo in support of both the Assembly and Senate versions of the bill,” the campaign scorecard says. It gave the lobbying plans an asterisked “done,” meaning that the promise is close to accomplished. (DASA came close to passing this year, but so far it hasn’t.)

The discrepancy is rooted in the city Department of Education’s nebulous legal position as neither a city nor a state agency, a position that got attention but no resolution in the school governance debate this year. (more…)

A graph using data from the Nation's Report Card shows the achievement gap of fourth graders on a national math exam.

A new report throws some cold water on optimism about the state’s black-white achievement gap, finding that while the gap is narrowing, it’s no different from the national average.

The findings were part of a report by the National Center for Education Statistics that examined racial achievement gaps for math and reading across the country. Relying on data culled from the National Assessment of Education Progress exam — also known as the Nation’s Report Card —  from the early 1990s to 2007, the report zeros in on the scores of the nation’s fourth and eighth graders.

On a national level, the study found that the reading achievement gap has slowly narrowed, but the math gap has not budged. Students’ scores have increased in both areas, but black students’ scores need to go up faster than whites’ scores in order for the gap to close.

“I think New York fits in,” said Stuart Kerachsky, acting commissioner of  the National Center for Education Statistics, on a conference call with reporters this morning. “Its gap is not significantly different from the average gap and it didn’t change in a significant way.” (more…)

A reader wrote in this simple message:

I have heard of the success of charter schools, and would like to learn more. I have a 11yr old son and a 5yr old granddaughter. Please tell me all you can.

Any brave souls want to step up to the plate? If you write an especially good response, we’ll forward it along to the questioner. E-mail us or leave a comment.

• Senators have proposed three specific amendments to the mayoral control bill. (GothamSchools, Post)
• Top Senate Democrats have promised they will take up mayoral control soon. (Daily News)
• The Daily News says the Senate should pass mayoral control “without muddlesome amendments.”
• The Post says since none of the amendments would curb the mayor’s power, they can be dealt with.
• Kids who are overweight do worse in school, according to a new report. (GothamSchools, Post)
• Another effect of child care center closings is a loss of after-school programs. (Daily News)
• Ed Sec Arne Duncan asked teachers to join him in his reform push. (Washington Post)
• Texas’s state school board has been told to put more religion into history classes. (Wall Street Journal)
• Across the country, school districts are turning to fines to deter student cell phone users. (ABC News)
• Schools in England could lose their special tax status unless they give more scholarships. (BBC News)
• Parents and educators are starting to favor “risk-taking skills” over test-taking ones. (USA Today)

• A private Catholic high school stands in for the public schools because of campaign rules.
• Your ballot may show Bloomberg on the Republican/Jobs and Education line — here’s why.
• Smith’s spokesman says he expects the Senate to vote on mayoral control sometime this week.
• Accountable Talk says mayoral control is bad policy under any mayor.
• Weingarten pledges to keep track of the Obama’s administration reform work with a “collaboration meter.”
• Russo says Duncan should have announced the SAT scores with caveats included.
• Congress isn’t sure BusRadio, delivered exclusively on school buses nationwide, is safe for your child.
• A new survey shows that school choice is severely limited by transportation options.
• EduWonk says Duncan is really talking about replication, not innovation.
• Kennedy reintroduces the TIME act and Quick and the Ed breaks it down for you.
• Malaysian schools will go back to teaching science and math in Malay, not English.
• And Sotomayor makes a point of emphasizing how much a good education is worth.

(via the Heath Department and DOE report)

In a report released today, city health and education researchers conclude that students’ academic performance is linked to their fitness level, but note that there’s no evidence for why that might be.

Issued jointly by the Health Department and Department of Education, the report focuses on public school students in grades K-8 and compares their standardized test scores to the data taken from NYC FitnessGram, a program that tests students’ fitness in gym class.

According to the report, students whose fitness scores rank in the top five percent, score 36 percentage points higher than students whose fitness level is in the bottom five percent.

The report’s authors take care to side step any question of causation. They write: (more…)