GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Harlem Success Academy supporters, in the orange shirts, at the hearing about their school's proposed new location

Parents, teachers, and children crowded an East Harlem school auditorium last night for what has become a familiar scene: a shouting match between charter school advocates and defenders of a neighborhood school wary of sharing its space.

The latest showdown took place at PS 30, a neighborhood school near Manhattan’s eastern shore where the Department of Education has proposed moving Harlem Success Academy II. HSA II would vacate its space at PS 123, where opposition to the charter school run by Eva Moskowitz had been fierce. PS 30 will not see an enrollment drop because of the plan, the DOE has said, although a small school located in the building, KAPPA II, is set to start phasing out this fall.

The Panel for Educational Policy is scheduled to vote on the proposal to move HSA II to PS 30 tomorrow. (more…)

A much smaller pool of jobless-but-salaried teachers and slimmed down rubber rooms are two of the requests on the city’s list of contract demands.

The list of demands, which had been kept secret for months as the city and United Federation of Teachers tried to reach an agreement, was included as part of a legal complaint filed against the city by the UFT. The complaint was sent to reporters yesterday by Department of Education spokesman David Cantor. The union distributed its own list of demands to chapter leaders back in September.

Many of the demands are recycled from years past, but there are several new ones tucked into the three-page document. For years, Chancellor Joel Klein has trumpeted Chicago’s method of laying off teachers, which gives out-of-work teachers a year to remain on salary and find a new job in the schools. Klein’s new list of demands would shrink that window to four months.

Another provision would force any teacher who’s been charged with misconduct or incompetence off of the city’s payroll while their case proceeds through termination hearings, effectively decreasing the rubber rooms’ ranks. (more…)

Lydia Bellahcene, a mother of students at P.S. 15 in Brooklyn, calls for a halt to the DOE's practice of giving charter schools space in district school buildings. She is flanked by Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio, City Council Education Committee Chair Robert Jackson and members of the Coalition for Educational Justice.

A group of parents, advocates and elected officials today asked the city to end its practice of placing charter schools in district school buildings until an outside agency evaluates the impact of the shared space arrangements.

Standing on the steps of City Hall, protesters argued that the city’s policy unfairly weakens district schools that are forced to give up needed classroom space to make way for growing charters and sometimes pits poor, minority parents against one another.

Protesters erected a small school-shaped tent, emblazoned with a sign reading, “Tweed is at 75 percent capacity,” and tried to carry it into City Hall (they were stopped by security officers). Organizers originally planned to “co-locate” the tent school in Tweed Courthouse, where the DOE is headquartered, but moved to the covered steps of City Hall due to bad weather. (more…)

One thing I’ve learned as a teacher is that kids don’t do well with change. The central issue with my classroom management as a first-year teacher was a lack of consistency. The behavior of my students was a reaction to the instability of the classroom environment I created. But even once you’ve learned to create a stable classroom structured around rules, routines and procedures, there are always x-factors that can throw off your students.

Sometimes it can be something as simple as the weather. A thunder storm or snow can produce plenty of excitement. A change in the day’s schedule — a substitute in the classroom in place of an absent gym teacher — can get kids pretty worked up too. One of my students had a complete meltdown when this happened my first year. Then there’s major disappointments like today, when we learned that tomorrow’s field trip was postponed.

We had all been looking forward to our trip to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx for months. But apparently nobody booked a bus … So, the trip had to be postponed a month. (more…)

• The UFT says using test scores in tenure decisions reflects an illicit rule change. (GothamSchools, Post)
• The DOE will work with the construction industry to develop a non-charter school for Smith HS. (Times)
• Bob Herbert praises Harlem Village Academy and its founder for “raising the bar” in Harlem. (Times)
• President Obama urged governors yesterday to improve education. (Times, Wall Street Journal)
• A mom says her child is being bullied at Brooklyn’s PS 161, but the school isn’t so sure. (Daily News)
• More than 900 San Francisco teachers and school staff are set to be laid off this year. (S.F. Chronicle)
• Chicago’s schools chief says he will improve the school closure process there. (Chicago Sun-Times)

• Former NY Times’ Style editor Trip Gabriel has a new assignment: education enterprise pieces.
• Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is pushing for meatless Mondays in schools.
• When is the AFT going to act on Randi Weingarten’s teacher quality speech? Eduflack wonders.
• InsideSchools profiled new high schools that are opening next school year.
• Robert Pondiscio runs into a former student being questioned by cops and walks away with great news.
• NYSUT is trying to woo charter schools, while lobbying for cuts to their funding, write Peter Murphy.
• Arne Duncan says governors agree with his plan to link Title I funding and adoption of higher standards.
• James Merriman says the UFT ignores district v. district inequity to focus on charter v. district differences.
• Enough with the redundant acronyms for different kinds of students, writes Linda Perlstein.
• Ron Isaac writes that if teachers are to be compared to doctors, they should have as much control.
• Jay Mathews looks at a couple of new ways to rank high schools.
• A Connecticut-based education group finds the state’s RttT application is full of holes.
• And just when you’d put Race to the Top news on mute, here’s the high school edition.

The teachers union is asking a state agency to put a stop to city plans to use test scores in tenure decisions, saying it violates the teachers’ contract.

United Federation of Teachers officials filed a complaint with the New York State Public Employment Relations Board on February 12, accusing the Department of Education of an “improper practice.” In the complaint, union officials say that Chancellor Joel Klein’s decision to include teacher data reports as a criteria in tenure decisions this spring violates the contract. The problem is a procedural one, union official said.

According to the UFT, any changes to the tenure process have to be bargained with the union, which the city did not do. (more…)

The city is swapping a plan that would have relocated nearly 100 disabled students to a new building for a plan to disperse the students into special education programs throughout the city.

Under the Department of Education’s original proposal, roughly two-thirds of the students at P.S. 138, a school for severely disabled students, would have moved to share space with the American Sign Language and English Secondary School, a middle and high school that gives admissions preference to deaf students.

That plan was scrapped after P.S. 138 parents and elected officials protested that the new site posed safety risks and that students would not be able to get around the school easily.

Some parents are saying that the department’s new plan is not much better. (more…)

• The principal of the Bronx’s Young Scholars Academy resigned after admitting improprieties. (Post)
• Ross Global Academy, the Manhattan charter school, has lost 20 percent of students this year. (Post)
• An architecture charter school with money problems won’t move to Smith HS after all. (Daily News)
• Students at a Manhattan high school are raising funds to visit Nazi concentration camps. (Daily News)
• Chancellor Klein praises Houston’s experiment in value-added teacher evaluation. (Houston Chronicle)
• Eva Moskowitz answers questions about the city’s charter school fights. (Education News Colorado)
• Rumor has it that NY can get Race to the Top funds by lifting the charter cap this month. (Crain’s NY)
• The city’s high school admissions process is too complicated, a columnist writes. (Metro)
• The Times says NYC should replicate Iowa’s programs to prepare GED test-takers.
• An investigation found an Albany charter school screened students for ability. (Albany Times-Union)
• The Obama administration might pressure states to adopt new math and reading standards. (Times)
• Obama told governors that the country could see massive teacher layoffs this year. (Reuters)
• President Obama is letting high schools compete to have him speak at graduation. (AP)
• The Wall Street Journal warns that students suffer because of teachers’ tenure protections.
• Australia could soon see teachers evaluated by test scores. (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Few are happy with San Francisco’s new enrollment system, designed to reduce segregation. (Times)