GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Michael Mulgrew’s tone in last week’s union newspaper could signal a tough stance in union negotiations.
• Mulgrew also called for an “army of volunteers” to stave off damage caused by budget cuts.
• More than half the jobs created or saved by the stimulus were in education, officials said today.
• Norm Scott connects the dots between the ATRs, New Haven, Chicago and possible NYC school closings.
• Merryl Tisch should reconsider charters before she makes her failing schools list, Patrick Sullivan writes.
• The hottest election in Montclair, N.J. isn’t for governor, it’s for the school board.
• Peter Murphy argues the DOE’s report on charter school performance lacks key data and context.
• Teachers at three Chicago charter schools signed the city’s first union contract for charter teachers today.
• North Carolinians who didn’t pass state competency tests since 1981 may now get a high school diploma.
• Peter Pappas touts the benefits of classroom walk-throughs in teacher professional development.
• And NYC Educator lets his student look for a new girlfriend, as long as he gets the right answers in class.

Down in DC yesterday, Chancellor Michelle Rhee faced sharp questioning from the D.C. Council about her office’s handling of hirings and layoffs of teachers and other staff members over the past several months.  The DC Public Schools hired 934 teachers during the spring and summer, with an average age of 32.  Faced with a budget shortfall of $43.9 million in the 2010 budget, Rhee announced the layoffs of 266 teachers and other staff on October 2^nd. 

 Critics wondered why this budget shortfall wasn’t identified earlier, before such widespread hiring, and some have questioned whether this pattern of hirings and layoffs was intentionally orchestrated to replace older, veteran teachers with younger, less-costly ones.  DCPS, under Chancellor Rhee’s name, posted on October 7^th a list of Frequently Asked Questions Concerning the Budget Shortfall and Staffing Reductions.  One of the questions was:  Did you target veteran teachers? (more…)

Department of Education officials are tamping down expectations before next month’s release of the annual high school report cards.

Testifying at a hearing before the City Council’s Education Committee, the DOE’s chief accountability officer Shael Polakow-Suransky said today that the reports will not show the preponderance of A’s that dominated the elementary and middle school reports released in September.

“You’re not going to see the big changes in the high school level that you saw at the elementary level,” Suransky said. “We didn’t see dramatic gains in the same way.”

That could be a good thing for the department, which saw its main accountability measure widely criticized when it announced that 84 percent of elementary-and middle-schools had earned an A. (more…)

• A DOE report shows that city charter schools overall are doing worse than district schools. (Daily News)
• A report suggests that many states, including NY, set standards lower than national test. (Times, Post, WSJ)
• Because it’s an election year, UFT contract talks are staying quiet and big changes aren’t likely. (Times)
• Today is the deadline for principals to hire teachers or have their budgets cut. (Daily News)
• Today is also the last day for schools to fill their pre-K classes or send money back to the state. (NY1)
• CBS-TV finds a Lehman High School student whose math grade mysteriously jumped from 55 to 75.
• Two schools gave students H1N1 vaccines without their parents’ permission. (Times, Daily News)
• New state education chief David Steiner says too much testing is bad for students. (Buffalo News)
• Downtown Express visits the two new elementary schools inside Tweed and interviews their principals.
• The DOE might fill the schools with temporary zoning instead of a lottery next year. (Downtown Express)
• District 3′s overcrowding battle continued during a contentious meeting last week. (West Side Spirit)
• The Community Education Council for District 8 is still short four members. (Bronx Times Reporter)
• College enrollment is higher than ever. (Times)
• The D.C. Council says Michelle Rhee hired new teachers despite looming cuts. (Washington Post)
• In a letter, Randi Weingarten responds to criticism about the New Haven teachers contract. (Post)
• A Baltimore Sun reader says Baltimore principals need more support, like what NYC principals get.

• The Daily Beast looks at cities with the highest high school dropout rates.
• Students are planning a protest outside City Hall against the new bake sale regulations.
• David Bloomfield takes an evenhanded look at the role of parents in school governance.
• Time Out NY Kids has a child-centered guide to the mayoral candidates.
• The teachers union contract, which technically expires this weekend, is full of anachronisms.
• Why it could be important that Writers Express is now part of Wireless Generation.
• NYC Educator wants reviews of Rachel Ray’s sort-of-a-taco school lunch, which was served today.
• The New York Times picks up on our story about Lehman High School — and gives us credit for it!
• Martha Stewart staffers made crafty masks with students at PS 20 on the Lower East Side.
• Deborah Meier remembers Gerald Bracey and Ted Sizer, saying that their lessons will live on.
• The AFT ran a full-page ad in the Washington Post about D.C.’s contract talks. Is it online anywhere?
• A forthcoming education consulting firm with an indeterminate mission is looking for a name.
• Students’ posture has really declined over time, according to a photo Alexander Russo dug up.
• Some are concerned that stats in tomorrow’s state education stimulus reports will be juked.

Much of the attention paid to Assemblyman Sam Hoyt’s proposed changes to state education law has focused on its immediate repeal of the charter school cap. But the legislation, introduced in both houses of the state legislature yesterday, seeks much broader changes.

Hoyt told GothamSchools that his proposed law is a kind of “kitchen-sink bill” intended to bring state law into line with the proposed federal Race to the Top regulations.

“I introduced the bill to get the discussion started about the need to change the paradigm in the state of New York and the need to compete on a national scale,” he said.

He said that he aimed high to make it likely that a powerful law could emerge from the legislative negotiation process.

In addition to removing the charter cap, Hoyt’s bill would allow student test scores to be factored into teacher evaluations, increase the number of years before a teacher can earn tenure, and let state funds be used to pay for charter school facilities. (The full list of proposed changes is at the end of this post.) (more…)

Click here to view Lehman transcripts and school records. Multimedia feature by Maura Walz.

The Bloomberg administration will investigate the whistleblowing teachers at Herbert Lehman High School who are accusing the school’s principal Janet Saraceno of tampering with students’ grades.

The teachers approached GothamSchools with students’ transcripts after some of them had submitted the same transcripts to the Office of Special Investigations, but had not heard back for months and assumed the investigation was dead. A spokesman for the DOE, David Cantor, said the investigation into the alleged grading manipulation is still open.

The city now plans to investigate the teachers as well.

Students’ education records are protected under the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act Regulations, commonly known as FERPA. Transcripts can be shared provided that “personally identifiable information” is not transmitted.

“All I can say is we are going to investigate the release of the student records publicly to the press,” Cantor said. (more…)