GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Joel Klein went on Morning Joe and had a much easier time than the teachers union president had.
• City Limits looks at whether Harlem Children’s Zone works and how it can be copied.
• Perhaps HCZ should be more open to outside analysis before it’s copied, writes Linda Perlstein.
• A teacher blogger thinks bad PR caused Klein to call for a snow day, not a change of heart.
• City Councilwoman Rosie Mendez says there’s no space for Girls Prep to expand in PS 188.
• Special education advocates are upset to see that funding is flat in the new proposed budget.
• Leonie Haimson writes that one day closing schools will be seen as ill-informed urban renewal.
• The UFT should fight the rubber room stories with incompetent admin stories, a teacher writes.
• Candidates running for UFT positions have to pay for lists of chapter leaders to get the word out.
• Without Monserratte, the Senate Dems can’t pass much, putting action on a charter cap on hold.
• Rep. Vernon Ehlers, a big supporter of math and science education, announced he will retire.
• Michael Jonas has a piece looking at two sides of the school turnaround debate.
• And Houston schools may end salary bumps for teachers with advanced degrees.

Some East Harlem parents aren’t waiting to find out whether a charter school will move into their school building before organizing against the possibility.

Parents at the Manhattan East School for Arts and Academies recently got wind that the Department of Education was considering placing Harlem Success Academy 5, one of three new charters Eva Moskowitz plans to open next year, in their building. The plan would call for Manhattan East to move to another building across the street to create space for Moskowitz’s school.

The founding principal of Manhattan East, Jacqueline Ancess, said that the DOE did not tell the school that it could be moved; rather, the current principal and parents association head found out that a move was under consideration at an unrelated DOE meeting “by accident,” she said.

Ancess and the school’s parent association responded by sending out a letter yesterday asking parents and supporters to call the city’s information hotline today to ask the city not to relocate the school.

“Manhattan East is a very successful school,” the message urges parents to tell the city. “Moving Manhattan East from its home is unconscionable.” (more…)

New York City is facing major cuts to its public schools, but there’s debate about exactly where in the Department of Education’s budget they should fall.

According to Chancellor Joel Klein, the only way to make a dent in the DOE’s budget is to lay off teachers. Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew has repeatedly rejected this idea and suggested that fewer no-bid contracts, payments to consultants, and a new retirement incentive, are the way to go.

Part of the challenge in figuring out where to make cuts is the haze surrounding where money is spent in the first place. (more…)

Joshua Louis, 5, came to Fort Greene Park to sled with his parents and older brother Philippe. Louis and Philippe were enjoying their day off from Brooklyn's P.S. 31.

Just a few weeks ago, Brooklyn’s Fort Greene Park was packed with protesters angry at the city’s plans to close 19 schools. This morning, the park filled with students and parents celebrating the temporary closure of the city’s schools for snow.

Philippe and Mariesa Louis brought their sons Philippe, 10, and Joshua, 5, both students at Brooklyn’s P.S. 31, to the park during a lull in the storm. There they joined other students and parents launching themselves down a hill on sleds, inner tubes and flattened cardboard boxes. A nearby tennis court was used for igloo-building and snowball fights.

How did you spend your snow day? Comment below or add your photos to the GothamSchools Flickr pool.

• The Board of Regents has only one more charter to hand out under the current cap. (Post)
• The city canceled school while the sun still shone and told charter schools they had to close, too. (Times)
• Advocates want changes to the shelter system so incidents like Rosa Briceno’s won’t recur. (Daily News)
• The national NAACP head, Benjamin Jealous, weighs in against NYC’s school closures. (Daily News)
• NYS school districts wasted $880 million in recent years, an audit found. (Albany Times-Union, NY1)
• First Lady Michelle Obama launched a new campaign to tackle childhood obesity. (Times)
• Los Angeles plans to fire 6 percent of its non-tenured teachers this year, up from 2 percent. (L.A. Times)

• Some city schoolchildren are less than thrilled by the prospect of a snow day….
• While New York’s bloggerati think the city ruined the snow day by calling it in advance.
• Does the city plant school scandal stories to deflect attention from bad news? Mulgrew thinks yes.
• A UFT blogger finds a link between low grad rates and the number of self-contained special ed classes.
• Diane Ravitch argues that when policy makers rely too heavily on data, the data start to change.
• Jay Mathews wants to know ways to encourage students to read non-fiction.
• The move to small schools in a Colorado district led to a 5 percent increase in costs, a new book reports.
• Transit cuts in Chicago are raising concerns about students’ safety as they wait for buses after school.
• A blogger in Northern VA compares snow removal efforts to discrepancies in funding between districts.

Among the competitors, oglers, and voyeurs obsessively tracking the Governor David Paterson rumor mill is another, slightly unexpected group: charter school supporters.

These principals, financial backers, and activists see the governor’s crisis as just the latest in a series of disappointing Albany-based developments for their movement — all of which have them concerned that their once-solid political support is wearing thin.

The air of anxiety can be traced back to last summer’s State Senate power struggle, in which the Republicans who had supported them for years regained and then lost control. When the dust finally settled, the one Democrat who seemed to be on their side, Senate President Malcolm Smith, had lost power. The effects of that change became clear last month when the Senate nearly passed a bill charter supporters said would kill the schools’ growth. (more…)

School buses parked in Red Hook, Brooklyn, wait out a winter storm. From Flickr via Michelle

No news travels faster than word of a snow day. It’s on the radio, on teacher blogs, and in a notice sent by the Department of Education this morning: There is no school tomorrow.

The Department of Education sent out a notice at 11:10 am to say that regular school as well as all after school activities and sports are canceled. The Panel for Educational Policy meeting, which was scheduled for tomorrow night, has also been canceled and the proposals moved to the March meeting.

The same precaution is not being extended to DOE employees, who will be at their desks tomorrow, I’m told.

Last March, Chancellor Klein waited until 20 minutes before 6 am to declare a snow day, angering teachers who’d already begun their commutes and parents who had to find childcare.

The chancellor’s notice this year reads: (more…)