Posts from October 2009
More New Yorkers think well of schools than they did in 2005
A survey released by the Community Service Society today shows that regardless of income, more New Yorkers think the city’s public schools are on the right track.
But the numbers barely make it past the 50 percent mark and for low-income residents, they don’t. The survey also shows that education will not determine how most people vote in the mayoral race.
The survey focuses on the views and concerns of the city’s low-income residents. Here’s how some of the schools-related data broke down:
- Roughly 20 percent more New Yorkers believe that the city’s schools are headed in the right direction than they did in 2005. In 2005, 29 percent of all New Yorkers said schools were moving in the right direction, 60 percent said they were on the wrong track, and 11 percent didn’t know. In 2009, 49 percent of all New Yorkers said schools are moving in the right direction, 41 percent said they’re on the wrong track, and 11 percent didn’t know. (more…)
No sense in looking back
I’m reading the sociologist Bruce Fuller’s book “Inside Charter Schools”; subtitle: “The Paradox of Radical Decentralization.” This passage struck me:
Ironically, education reformers often hold little sense of history, on the assumption that when you’re on the cutting edge there’s no sense in looking back. Nor do local reformers always consider the wider political context in which they are both players and pawns. However, if we fail to confront these issues, the perils of radical decentralization may outweigh its promises.
More about the book here. That passage is on page 60.
, at 6:37 pmGifted Gazette
October 7, 2009
News Flash – G&T Program Handbook Now Available!
The DOE just posted the gifted and talented handbook on the NYC Dept. of Ed site. You can now apply online for the gifted and talented testing.
Looking into David Steiner’s archives
New state education commissioner David Steiner might be too cerebral for Albany, writes Thomas Carroll in the GothamSchools community section. Carroll — president of the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability and a frequent recent contributor to the New York Post — looks at what Steiner has said in the past about curriculum, testing, equity, and pedagogy and finds clear, pointed critiques of how schools operate.
Carroll writes:
, at 10:19 amI have no doubt David Steiner is ready for his new position as state education commissioner. But, is Albany quite ready for David Steiner?
guest perspective
October 7, 2009
Steiner’s Paper Trail
This past week, David Steiner sparked considerable controversy when he expressed skepticism about lifting the charter-school cap. Steiner made his offhand comments after being sworn in as New York State’s 13th Commissioner of Education.
After this controversy blows over, more may be on the horizon. The controversy will come because Steiner is such an atypical appointee. At a time when cautious appointers crave candidates who leave no trace, Steiner — a first-rate intellectual with an iconoclastic mind — has quite the paper trail and a healthy measure of provocative ideas.
Steiner reminds me, in some respects, of a mannerly version of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. This is not a political statement; politics or ideology is not what animates Steiner. But like Scalia, Steiner is a voluminous and gifted writer with a distinctive voice, strongly held views, and a talent for penning a memorable phrase — and he often is the smartest guy in the room. (more…)
Headlines
October 7, 2009
Rise & Shine: Grade-changing suspected at a Queens school
- The charter school located in Brooklyn’s JHS 126 curtailed JHS 126′s use of its new library. (Daily News)
- Pre-K teachers were trained Monday in how to screen all students for developmental delays. (NY1)
- Report cards at PS 147 in Queens suggest that students’ grades were revised upward. (Daily News)
- Proposed rules for school vending machines allow only low-calorie drinks such as seltzer. (Times)
- The Post says it draws the line at the anti-obesity initiative that’s cutting students off from bake sales.
- Chicago will use statistics to identify 10,000 students at risk of violence and then help them. (Times)
- Some think Chicago’s school closures, which mix gangs in schools, are causing the violence. (AP)
- Under Arne Duncan’s innovation fund rules, bigger grants will go to proven programs. (Times)
- Teachers say an Albany charter school secretly videotaped them in class. (Albany Times-Union)
nightcap
October 6, 2009
Remainders: Duncan rolls out details of i3 money
- Applications for Duncan’s i3 money must come with private matching funds.
- In an interview on Road to City Hall, Mulgrew calls for changing the way the capital plan is voted on.
- Ravitch: “Some of our schools are like archeological sites, with layer after layer of reform.”
- The DOE’s “wellness” argument for banning bake sales during lunch is phony, Steve Koss writes.
- Richard Kessler writes that arts education advocacy is most often random acts of advocacy.
- CA’s superintendent says curriculum cuts will have severe consequences.
- Dear God, it’s me, an NYC teacher. What is happening to my pencils?
- CRPE’s report knocks Chicago for not making per-pupil funding system-wide.
- Some states are not using the stimulus funds the way they were supposed to, Edu Dpt. says.
- Corey Bowers wonders how Duncan plans to make charter schools into community centers.
- Chaz says IS 59′s turn-around principal is great, but he wasn’t always that way.
- And, no joke, a Tennessee teacher stole her students’ lunch money.
Waiting for the dough (Updated)
October 6, 2009
Parent training center put on hold as city waits for state funds
Months after the city and the State Senate made a deal to create a parent-training center, plans for the center have come to a standstill as both sides wait for someone to fund the project.
Won as part of a deal between a group of runaway senators and Mayor Bloomberg during last summer’s mayoral control debate, the center would be housed at CUNY and would cost the city and state a total of $1.6 million. Advocates for the center’s creation have said it would address concerns that the current mayoral control law keeps parents out of the political process. They said the center would train parents who normally wouldn’t get involved to serve on community education councils and school leadership teams.
Though they have agreed to split the cost, neither the Department of Education nor the State Senate has yet to commit any money to the project. (more…)
Charter school space and the demand for data: our readers weigh in
Readers looking for an interesting and informed conversation about charter schools’ use of space, the renewal process and school transparency should head over to the comment thread discussing Girls Prep Charter School’s request for more school space in District 1 on the Lower East Side.
In addition to a lively debate between Norm Scott, a member of an opposition party within the UFT, and charter school backer Ken Hirsh (full disclosure: Hirsh is also a financial supporter of GothamSchools), the school’s executive director and others who are directly involved in the conversation around Girls Prep have hopped into the fray. (more…)
New study says it’s too early to pass judgment on Klein’s reforms
A new study examining one of Chancellor Joel Klein’s central reforms, as well as similar efforts in three other cities, calls the changes promising but says that the work is too incomplete to draw a conclusive answer on its effects.
The paper, released by the University of Washington-based Center on Reinventing Public Education, is the interim report of a longer study on school district restructuring efforts in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago and New Orleans. These four cities are all in various stages of putting into place what the authors call a “portfolio school district.” In these districts, control over budgets, hiring and curriculum are controlled by individual schools, rather than by the central school administration. (more…)
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