GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• High schools in eight states, but not New York, will start letting kids graduate after 10th grade. (Times)
• City Council speaker Christine Quinn will push GED improvements in a major speech today. (NY1)
• The brand-new Hebrew Language Academy charter school has a diverse student body. (Forward)
• Chicago won’t close five schools due to the gang conflicts doing so would cause. (Chicago Sun-Times)
• The city’s Young Women’s Leadership schools are being exported to Baltimore. (Baltimore Sun)
• One in five New Jersey schools have no poor students, giving the state the highest wealth gap. (Times)
• A majority of California school districts have refused to sign the state’s Race to the Top bid. (L.A. Times)

• Kim Gittleson is building a database to track city DOE spending over the past decade.
• Officials refer ELLs to special ed services too quickly in some suburban NY districts, a new study says.
• A Brooklyn 4-year-old died after he slipped and was trapped between the wheels of a yeshiva’s school bus.
• Rick Hess would like to banish the phrase “it’s for the kids” from education discourse…
• …While Linda Perlstein wants journalists to be clearer about how charter schools are funded.
• Jay Mathews encourages journalists (and everyone!) to volunteer helping high school newspapers.
• Micah Lasher, recently the DOE’s and now the city’s top lobbyist, may be considering a State Senate run.
• A mother of a student with autism gives her thanks for city services that have served her son well.
• The Cato Institute argues that proponents of common standards don’t have much of a research base.
• A UFT blogger says that the new tenure rules are evidence that Klein has declared war against the union.
• A teacher thinks the DOE’s thumbs-up to Opportunity Charter shows how Klein is playing favorites.
• Steve Levy tells Ira Stoll that he’s evolving into a charter school supporter, though he still likes vouchers.
• It’s the first anniversary of the stimulus plan. Politics K-12 has ten questions to look out for the next year.
• Berlin exempted children from strict city noise pollution laws. (Wonder how that would go over in Brooklyn.)

A new report on the rapid proliferation of small schools in New York City finds that while the schools have expanded students’ options, most students choose to attend larger schools.

Commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the report is one of four that will eventually be released in order to study how the schools have multiplied, who is attending them, who is teaching in them, and whether they’re succeeding. The Gates Foundation popularized and funded the small schools movement in New York, fueling the growth of nearly 200 small schools with a $150 million investment.

A New York-based research group, MDRC, conducted the report, which does not look at the schools’ academic record — that analysis will come out in spring — but focuses on the schools’ enrollment and demographics. (more…)

• A private school test prep firm is set to start offering its services to gifted program applicants. (Post)
• Three more schools were added to the city’s list of failing schools. (GothamSchools, Daily News)
• An after-school science program, Bridges, teaches students about the urban environment. (NY1)
• Is the Harlem Children’s Zone really all it’s cracked up to be? Maybe, maybe not. (City Limits)
• Opportunity Charter School, which serves special-needs students, will not close. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• Like New York City, Los Angeles says it’s hard to fire incompetent teachers. (L.A. Weekly)
• High school students struggle because the sun rises too late, a study suggests. (L.A. Times)
• High schools in eight states will pilot a program to graduate students after 10th grade. (Times)

• Diane Ravitch writes that the expansion of charter schools will be the origin of future scandals.
• Rick Hess has a new blog over he’ll be delivering some bitter medicine to the education world.
• Smart Boards have arrived at Pissed Off Teacher’s school, but there may be no time to learn to use them.
• Black students were 23 percent of the applicants to top city high schools, but 7 percent of the accepted.
• Mimi wonders why schools put the most difficult students in classes with the least experienced teachers.
• Peter Murphy takes issue with the DN’s disapproving tone on city-funded grants for charter school facilities.
• A bank has hired New Orleans supe Paul Vallas to build a model for a new school system for Haiti.
• The way physics teachers are trained is “largely inefficient [and] mostly incoherent,” a task force said.
• InsideSchools has the rundown of the DOE’s options for students at schools slated for closure.
• Should we make high school senior year optional? A Utah politician is suggesting it as a way to cut costs.
• And Arne Duncan had a cameo on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. (via Alexander Russo)

In the debate over whether to close 19 schools this year, the city and its opponents have mulled possible effects on student achievement, attendance, and the drop-out rate. But one thing that remains unclear is what will happen to the approximately 1,000 teachers working in these schools.

Teachers who work at shuttered schools lose their positions, but — because of a deliberate line in the labor contract — they do not fall off the city payroll, even if they don’t find a new position at another city school. In the past few years, the contract line has meant a ballooning set of teachers receiving regular paychecks even though they don’t hold regular jobs. Between 2006 and April 2009, these members of the Absent Teacher Reserve cost the DOE approximately $193 million. This year, conservative estimates put the cost at $90 million.

In 2008, a report by The New Teacher Project, a New York-based research group, said the hiring process was “hard-wired for failure.” The report also found that 70 percent of excessed teachers from closing schools in 2007 were immediately hired at other schools.

But the situation next year could look worse.

(more…)

• Three high-profile, politically touchy charter schools are set to get city-funded buildings. (Daily News)
• Eva Moskowitz’s two newest schools will open in the Bronx and be called Bronx Success. (NY1)
• The construction-themed charter school coming to Alfred E Smith HS has big problems. (Times)
• There are 10 percent fewer black students in the city’s top high schools than 8 years ago. (Daily News)
• Half a dozen teachers in the rubber room have been cleared to return to class but will never do so. (Post)
• Chancellor Klein says he wants to stop paying teachers while they’re in the rubber room. (Post)
• UFT head Michael Mulgrew says the best way to deal with rubber rooms is to try teachers faster. (Post)
• Gov. Paterson’s proposed budget would require day-care workers to pay dues to the UFT. (Post)
• Peter Murphy from the state’s charter schools association rails against their frozen spending. (Post)
• Deputy state ed chief John King says reforming assessment is his top priority. (Albany Times-Union)
• Elected officials say closing schools in their last years are empty shells of their former selves. (AP)
• The mother of the boy who says he was forced to fight by a school aide is suing the city. (NY1)
• The Daily News praises the DOE’s decision to use test scores in some teachers’ tenure.
• School districts are legally not able to use all of the funds they unnecessarily stashed away. (AP)
• Testing experts say states should always be on the lookout for cheating. (Times)
• Los Angeles teachers and administrators appear set to agree to a shortened school year. (L.A. Times)
• A judge gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit by a Florida student suspended over her Facebook page. (Times)