GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Bloomberg’s charter school expansion plan could double space fights, the Times writes.
• The mayor said Thompson was “awfully quiet” when the charter cap was an issue years ago.
• Andy Smarick calls Bloomberg’s charter plan an “excellent proposal.”
• Most New York voters mistakenly think sex-ed is required in the public schools.
• Mayoral control and Bloomberg’s money have put the UFT’s help far out of Thompson’s reach.
• Colleagues on Twitter help a teacher tame a class of 34 unruly eighth graders.
• If the city elections offer any lesson, it’s that the UFT still has serious clout.
• A 10-hour nationwide fitness relay tomorrow will include some New York schools.
• Liam Goldrick writes that Rhee should own up to the flaws in using test scores to measure schools.
• Sen. Bennet’s arrival is good news for charter advocates, if he can hold onto his seat.
• A Baltimore eighth grader died of swine flu yesterday.
• And Detroit is enticing students to come to school with the hope of winning a flat-screen TV.

In the tug-of-war between charter school advocates and opponents over building space for the city’s charter schools, emotions frequently churn and bubble over; protests and shouting matches are not unheard of. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way, a team of district and charter school administrators who share a Lower East Side building said today.

Gearing up for a community meeting tonight about space issues in Manhattan’s District 1 that will feature their own building, administrators said they want to emphasize the need for a neighborly conversation.

“I’m not going to say it’s easy,” said Mary Pree, the principal of P.S. 188, which shares space with another district school and the Girls Prep Charter School. “Everyone would always like 10 extra classrooms.”

But Pree emphasized that her school’s relationship with the two schools is vibrant, and that the schools are working to develop even stronger connections between the parent associations at the school. “We’re a place where this collaboration is working,” she said. (more…)

I’ve been religiously checking every day and the NYC DOE just posted gifted and talented testing dates and information sessions for this year.

I’ll be attending a couple of the sessions to evaluate the format and gauge interest in this program. I’ll post my evaluations of these meetings and I invite you to do the same.

Here’s a brief summary of the upcoming dates, taken from the DOE’s site: (more…)

So far this year, I have something that teachers dream of having: well-behaved students who are interested in learning. They have done well on the assignments I’ve given. They do their homework. They are kind, to each other and to me. I have high hopes and I sense that they do too.

It hasn’t always been this way. I’ve just started my tenth year at MS 145 in the Bronx, with sixth graders. Prior to that, I spent three years at the now-defunct IS 147, also in the Bronx. Fortunately, I am not superstitious about the number thirteen. I love to read and write, so need I mention that I teach English? Ironically, I’d intended to teach at the high school level, but discovered that I loved working with middle school kids.

Maybe I shouldn’t even write about my good fortune for fear that one day very soon, I’ll find that it was all in my head. (more…)

• A leaked e-mail shows dissent within the SCA about a controversial DUMBO school project. (Daily News)
• City schools have to entice student diners with food produced under difficult constraints. (Times)
• Bill de Blasio and John Liu are the Democratic nominees for public advocate and comptroller. (Times)
• Duncan, Sharpton, and Gingrich started their national tour in Philadelphia. (Wall Street Journal, AP)
• D.C. has fired the group contracted to build an ARIS-like data system for its schools. (Washington Post)
• The contractor who handles security at D.C. schools is also in trouble. (Washington Post)
• Sen. Dick Durbin suggested there is hope for D.C.’s school voucher program. (Wall Street Journal)
• A Senate finance panel voted to restore money for abstinence sex education that Obama cut. (AP)

• OFEA’s Martine Guerrier is the only Tweed dweller to make City Hall News’ 40 under 40 list.
• Peter Murphy says the charter movement doesn’t need to ponder equality and diversity more deeply.
• Chicago officials are re-tooling their admissions policies since a judge threw out their desegregation order.
• The House goes mad for RttT and looks to expand it to pre-k and community colleges.
• Diana Senechal says schools should teach children to be “good,” not “nice.”
• Eduflack: it may be unfair, but people will expect immediate results from the Gates teacher quality grants.
• ELL experts are surveying how states plan to use stimulus money to help those students.
• Pissed Off Teacher pens a letter to the president with a list of demands.
• Here’s one not particularly advisable way to get your child into a good school.
• And Bloomberg’s biographer Joyce Purnick thinks third terms are cursed.

Last July, the New York City Department of Education released an in-house memo of recommendations to improve services to students with disabilities.  So, in the midst of an election campaign and with little previous administration attention paid to this population, it seems fair to ask, “Hey, Mike!  Why special ed? Why now?”  Does this new initiative suggest commitment to change or is it a political document meant to convey progress rather than institutional inertia?

The DOE memo, if implemented, would improve instruction, graduation, and career possibilities for the city’s approximately 130,000 students with IEPs, the “individualized education programs” that federal law mandates for students with disabilities.  But DOE commitment to these recommendations is uncertain since the report reads less like a trusted expert’s focused analysis and more like an aide’s synthesis of progressive positions with an eye to mayoral politics. (more…)