GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Schools that never had extra-large classes before have them now. (Daily News)
• Juan Gonzalez reports that a Lower Manhattan school got a $250 million, 30-year lease. (Daily News)
• New vending machines in schools will have healthier snacks. (Daily News)
• More than 5,000 school custodians are getting instruction in protecting against H1N1 flu. (NY1)
• A nationwide school nurse shortage could be a problem in the fight against the flu’s spread. (AP)
• A look at what this year’s not-yet-approved Contracts for Excellence money will fund in District 21. (Post)
• Brooklyn Tech students counter-protested against members of a Kansas anti-gay church. (Times Local)
• D.C. teachers protested coming layoffs, which some worry will affect older teachers. (Washington Post)
• Randi Weingarten and other labor leaders say Arne Duncan looks like “Bush III.” (Washington Post)
• Duncan says his law will set goals but not always tell states how to get there. (Christian Science Monitor)
• In South Africa, teenagers are rallying for better schools. (Times)
• Jay Mathews: New book convinced me that better schools would boost the economy. (Washington Post)

• A SUNY-Buffalo professor tells NPR that K-third graders should be in classes of fewer than 20 students.
• Abacus Mom loves a new comic novel that doubles as a private school admissions manual.
• The MTA gave two subway cars for the students of Transit Tech High School to work on.
• VH1′s Save the Music Foundation will pay for a $30,000 keyboard lab for P.S. 22′s amazing chorus.
• A first year teacher says that sometimes his brain “feels like mashed potatoes.”
• Linda Darling-Hammond is one of a few familiar names on the Common Standards Committee.
• Joanne Jacobs likes the Core Knowledge curriculum, but doesn’t want it mandated city-wide.
• Insideschools student blogger Toni wants her classmates to join the New York City Student Union.
• Quick and the Ed points out that Obama’s “safe schools czar” is not actually a czar.
• And a Chicago school bus driver shares her perspective on youth violence.

I’ve always been told how effective music can be as a teaching tool. Unfortunately, as those who know me can attest, I’m less than musically inclined. I listen to it non-stop, but create it? Not so much.

Enter the scientific method. It’s kind of a complicated topic to teach to third graders, especially when most are English Language Learners. Words like observation, hypothesis, conclusion are a bit of a stretch for their vocabularies. Somehow the only logical solution was to compose a rap.

It started with a hook that popped into my head: “The method, the method, the scientific method.” I’ll admit it’s got a kinda old school, Grandmaster Flash vibe to it, but it stuck. Before I knew it I was channeling B-Rabbit and laying down my own 16 bars.

Today was the big day. (more…)

Here’s one more reason state tests might be getting easier to pass: a longstanding State Education Department practice of publicly releasing every question on each year’s exam.

The unusual practice makes it harder for test-makers to gauge how difficult a test is, said Howard Everson, chair of the state’s Technical Advisory Group, an oversight committee that monitors state testing.

Many states release some test questions but keep others private so they can be used again to compare one year’s test to another’s, said Daniel Koretz, a Harvard University education professor who studies testing. But New York has long had a practice of releasing every single test question to the public soon after students sit for the exams. (more…)

A Senate amendment to the Assembly’s school governance law that hasn’t gotten much attention is one that would establish “quality of curriculum and instruction” as a basis on which superintendents must evaluate principals. It’s a move that people familiar with the Department of Education say is desperately needed.

Legally, superintendents in each district have always been responsible for rating principals. But in recent years, a shift to a more formulaic evaluation process has stripped superintendents of their influence, say people familiar with the evaluation process.

“The DOE has depended more on the accountability system rather than on what the superintendents determined,” said David Bloomfield, a professor at Brooklyn College who helps train school administrators.

“There’s a lack of clarity about the role of what the superintendent is,” said Judi Aronson, a former superintendent. “Although theoretically they evaluate principals and sign off on many documents relating to evaluation, evaluation is only by the metrics of the progress report, PPR, and quality review.”

The metrics Aronson referred to were put in place in January 2008, when the city changed the formula for principal evaluation as a result of the principals union contract agreed upon two years ago. The formula based 32 percent of a principal’s annual “grade” on his school’s progress report score, 22 percent on the Quality Review grade, 10 percent on legal compliance, and 5 percent on offering special education services. The remaining 31 percent of the Principal Performance Review grade has been based on whether principals have met the “goals and objectives” they set out for themselves, goals that officials say are best when they relate to student achievement. The formula means that a principal at a school where test scores are increasing is virtually assured of a passing evaluation, no matter what teachers, parents, or the community superintendent thinks. (more…)

If OLSAT, BSRA, ERB, G&T and Stanford-Binet don’t ring a school bell for you then you’ve mostly likely not experienced the entrance exams for NYC private schools or the tests for the NYC public school gifted and talented programs.

Since our child (at the ripe age of four) took the 128-question OLSAT/BSRA test (yes, 128 questions!) in February and got accepted to a public school gifted and talented program, I’ve become quite familiar with the ins and outs of the G&T program from a parent’s perspective. Between the OLSAT testing, obsessing, waiting on the results, obsessing some more, receiving the test results, touring the the G&T schools, obsessing again, prioritizing the schools we wanted, receiving the school placement letter from DOE, going to parent orientation, and finally having the first day of school it’s been quite a ride! 

Now I want to share my expertise as I continue to learn more. (more…)

Image courtesy of UFT/New York Teacher

They may have signed confidentiality agreements and sworn off speaking to reporters, but there’s no time like the first day of contract negotiations for a photo op. The man with the shaved head on the left is teachers union president Michael Mulgrew and on the right, the man who seems to be daring Mulgrew to blink is James Hanley, the city’s commissioner of labor relations. (more…)

I was in my classroom on my prep yesterday when my next door neighbor walked in. I’m still getting my bearings at my new school, but I’ve caught on enough to know she walks the walk and talks the talk.

“I love your classroom. It looks great!”

“Wow, thanks. That means a lot coming from you,” I replied. I’ve been working hard to get my class in shape and this woman’s classroom is a colorful picture of perfection, fit for the pages of the Lakeshore catalog.

“Can I just make a suggestion?” (more…)