Posts from December 2009
Bloomberg: Regents’ proposals “an important first step”
Mayor Bloomberg is in Copenhagen today, but that isn’t stopping him from weighing in on the Board of Regents’ Race to the Top-inspired slate of policy proposals rolled out this morning — and from boosting a few pet policies of his own.
Here’s the statement Bloomberg just released:
, at 6:01 pmI commend Chancellor Tisch, Commissioner Steiner, and the Board of Regents for proposing a reform agenda that includes an increase in the cap on charter schools, a turnaround strategy for the lowest-performing schools, incentives for math and special education teachers, and rigorous standards and assessments. These are some of the reforms I recently called for and that are necessary to improve our schools and win the hundreds of millions in Race to the Top funds our kids need and deserve.
The Board’s proposed teacher evaluation system is an important first step in the right direction, and we hope the Board will go further by requiring that student achievement data be part of the system. As we face the prospect of serious budget cuts, student achievement data is critical to ensuring that a teacher’s skill set and performance — not his or her seniority — are the basis for determining any layoff decisions that must be made. We also urge the State to allow school districts to place a one-year limit on the amount of time that teachers may collect their salaries after losing their jobs, and to end the ‘rubber room’ as we know it.
race to the race to the top (updated x3)
December 14, 2009
Board of Regents urges state legislature to lift charter cap
State Education Commissioner David Steiner and the Board of Regents today urged the state legislature to increase the cap on charter schools in New York.
While he stopped short of asking for a specific number, Steiner roughly calculated using the Race to the Top application guidelines that a cap of 400, twice the number currently allowed under state law, would best make the state competitive in that section of the Race to the Top application.
The request comes as part of a larger effort by the Regents to create a sense of pressing need for legislative change to help the state compete for a slice of the $4.3 billion federal grant. New York is eligible for up to $700 million of the grant money.
“The crucial thing here is to say, we can’t stand still,” said State Education Commissioner David Steiner.
States earn points in the competition for grants on a variety of measures, including how friendly it is to charter school expansion and to using student test scores to rate teachers and teacher training programs. States will be judged by their policies in place at the time applications are submitted in the middle of January.
The state has nearly hit its current cap on charter schools, and a law banning the use of student data in teacher tenure decisions remains on the books. Legislation introduced in October designed to make the state more competitive for Race to the Top has failed to gain momentum. (more…)
race to the race to the top
December 14, 2009
Regents to push Race to the Top school turnaround strategy today
State Education Commissioner David Steiner and Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch welcome board members to their December meeting in Albany this morning.
The public will get one of its first thorough looks at New York State’s Race to the Top strategy today, as the Board of Regents meets to consider a list of changes designed to make the state more competitive for a slice the $4.3 billion fund.
Anna is on her way to Albany and will report back on the Regents’ discussions. A few interesting things have already emerged from the Board’s agenda.
Tops on the list: a list of proposed criteria for identifying the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools to target for “turnaround,” a method that involves closing schools and reopening them with new leadership and staff. Many of the schools expected to land on that list will be in New York City. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also said he wants to turnaround even more schools than the state. The mayor has pledged to close and reopen the city’s lowest-performing 10 percent of schools in the next four years.
The Regents are also likely to vote to urge the legislature to raise the cap on charter schools. Although Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Education Commissioner David Steiner are both defenders of the cap, Tisch has recently said that now is the time to increase the number of charters allowed in the state. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said that states that limit the growth of charters will be at a disadvantage in the competition for Race to the Top money.
Headlines
December 14, 2009
Rise & Shine: Board of Regents weighing RttT changes today
- On the Race to the Top-driven agenda for the Board of Regents today: Raising the charter cap. (Post)
- The state teachers union is letting teachers know they can get around a new pension-limiting law. (Post)
- The budget-crunched MTA is considering eliminating free student Metrocards. (Daily News)
- Gov. Paterson says he can’t do anything about the MTA’s plans. (Daily News)
- A new law give more oversight to public authorities, such as the School Construction Authority. (Times)
- A sports columnist who went to Jamaica HS worries about what the city is giving up by closing it. (Times)
- Gov. Paterson is withholding 10 percent of school funding set to go out tomorrow. (Times, Daily News)
- A bus company that admitted to using bribery is set to get a new $200m DOE contract. (Daily News)
- The Wall Street Journal thinks Michelle Rhee should be getting more love from Arne Duncan.
- D.C.’s NAEP scores are up, and so is its black-white achievement gap. (Washington Post)
- Detroit’s nearly bankrupt schools are seeking volunteer reading teachers. (AP)
- Jay Mathews identifies a low-performing charter school and asks why it’s still open. (Washington Post)
- A bill pending in Congress would quadruple federal funding for performance pay. (Washington Post)
- An arbitrator ruled that Boston’s experiment in performance pay isn’t allowed. (Boston Globe)
- A proposed admissions policy in Chicago would seriously limit geographic choice. (Chicago Tribune)
- Politics, not pedagogy, has driven California’s recent education reforms. (AP)
- The L.A. Times questions California’s “directionless, even reckless” pursuit of Race to the Top funds.
nightcap
December 11, 2009
Remainders: A new co-chairman for New Visions
- Investment bank chairman Roger Altman is now co-chairman of New Visions for Public Schools.
- The city’s report on arts education was more like a study of cognitive dissonance, Richard Kessler writes.
- McDonalds has higher standards for its meat than the U.S. gov’t has for school lunches.
- A new report offers a framework for administrations and unions to discuss how to use data.
- Ed in the Apple offers a how-to guide for saving your school from the brink of extinction.
- Norm chronicles the goings-on at our party on Wednesday night.
- Jay Mathews looks at some reasons Montgomery high schools didn’t make the U.S. News list.
- Don’t hesitate to call home, a blogger writes, the only alternative is chaos in your classroom.
- Andy Smarick says for Duncan, union contracts are a Rubicon he will not cross.
- A California school board canceled an anti-gay bullying curriculum after it had been approved.
- And the Spencer Foundation is launching a grant program to study how teachers use data.
DOE proposes to let PAVE stay in P.S. 15 an additional five years
The Department of Education released details of a controversial space-sharing proposal for a Brooklyn charter and district school today, and it would allow the charter to remain in the building until 2015 and add five more grades of students.
The plan follows months of controversy about whether PAVE Academy Charter School should be allowed to continue to share space with Red Hook’s P.S. 15, and if so, whether the charter should be allowed more classrooms in the building.
PAVE originally agreed to leave the P.S. 15 building at the end of this school year. Its request earlier this year to extend its stay sparked worries among P.S. 15 parents and teachers that the charter school would stay indefinitely, squeezing the district school. (more…)
Making the case for Columbus HS’s second chance
The Department of Education recently announced its plans to close Christopher Columbus High School, but a teacher and professional developer at the school is arguing that Columbus deserves another chance.
Christine Rowland, who works at the UFT Teacher Center at the school, explains in a piece in the community section how Columbus became what’s often called a “dumping ground” for difficult students from other schools that were closed. The percentage of incoming freshmen who were reading or doing math at grade level dropped precipitously from 1998 to 2005, while the number of special education students at Columbus grew, leaving teachers and administrators scrambling to accommodate the new population. Now, Rowland writes, the school is being punished for it.
She writes:
, at 6:02 pmRight now our longer term outcomes are relatively good for our students, helping them along the path to graduation even when they take more than four years. Those students with severe special needs are helped as frequently as possible with work study programs that provide them with job skills, and frequently job placements on leaving the school. We ask that the DOE reconsider their decision and give the Christopher Columbus community the reprieve it deserves.
It's Friday. Just show a video.
December 11, 2009
Joel Klein touts education journalism at GothamSchools event
As Schools Chancellor Joel Klein himself admitted, he’s provided a lot of grist for our site in its first year. His name has appeared more than 5,000 times on GothamSchools, far more than anyone else.
So we were excited when Klein agreed to speak at our party earlier this week. Love him or hate him, Klein is a great party guest. The chancellor offered some kind words for the GothamSchools community and the role of education journalism.
“I think the work you’re doing —the ability to give people voice, and the ability for people to disagree, to argue, to learn from each other — is enormously powerful, in many ways much more powerful than the daily fare in the daily newspaper,” he said. “And in that respect, what you’ve done has made the process better, richer. I’ve learned from it.”
(Agree with Klein? Here’s how to help.)
For those of you who missed it (or for those who want to relive the magic), here’s a video of the chancellor’s remarks. Take a look:
guest perspective
December 11, 2009
Christopher Columbus High School: A Context for Accountability
Christine Rowland is a teacher and professional developer at the UFT Teacher Center at Christopher Columbus High School. She has been at Columbus since 2002.
On Monday, a team from the Department of Education walked into Christopher Columbus High School to announce that it would be closed. It was a profoundly upsetting day for our entire community (on Pearl Harbor Day, as Columbus’s UFT chapter leader Donald March pointed out). I would like to take this opportunity to address the issues surrounding this decision and to appeal for a reversal.
Until several years ago, Columbus was a school that contained a diverse student body not only in terms of races, nationalities and language backgrounds, but also abilities. In 1998, 41-56% of the entering freshmen and sophomores were on grade level in reading and math at entry. By 2005, this number dropped to 5.9% of entering freshmen in reading and 14% in math. (more…)
Headlines
December 11, 2009
Rise & Shine: Tutoring, teacher training top one principal’s cut list
- Current and former teachers have filed a lawsuit to close the DOE’s “rubber rooms.” (Daily News)
- Anticipating budget cuts, a Bronx principal outlines what he could cut from his school. (Times)
- Brooklyn Generation School has a longer school year thanks to a special UFT contract. (NY1)
- A man who punched a woman on MTV’s “Jersey Shore” is a Queens public school teacher. (Metro)
- The head of the Council of the Great City Schools says the NAEP scores are good for NYC. (Daily News)
- Far Rockaway teachers worry that local students won’t find a nearby high school home. (Daily News)
- Parents at the new Spruce School have proposed alternate zone lines for District 2. (Downtown Express)
- A Bay Area school district is canceling a program adopted in May to curb bullying against gays. (AP)
- Kirkus Reviews, a publication founded by a children’s book reviewer, will close in weeks. (Times)
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