GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

New York’s State Senate voted this afternoon to make deep cuts to public school funding, eliciting immediate protest from teachers unions, school boards, and New York City’s mayor.

The $1.1 billion in cuts, proposed by Governor Paterson, passed the Senate today by a vote of 32-29, with Republicans voting against it. Even before senators took the vote, rumor that they would pass the governor’s proposed budget filled the state capital, causing education groups to forecast disaster in the coming years. The cuts are far from finalized — the State Assembly still has to come up with its own budget proposal.

President of New York City’s teachers union, Michael Mulgrew, released a statement saying that as a result of the cuts, class sizes for first graders would rise to 28 students, after-school programs would disappear, and summer school would become unaffordable. (more…)

Students at my school who travel long distances come to school less often, I concluded earlier this month. But what does their commute mean for their academic achievement?

In the second phase of my study, I examined how the length of a student’s commute relates to his academic progress. Again, I looked only at the self-contained special education students at my school, Columbus High School in the Bronx, and I used credit accumulation as the tool to measure progress. My results show that the negative impact of a long commute on attendance is magnified when looking at credit accumulation.

Here’s the bottom line:

Having looked at these numbers and through the raw student data, I noticed that for the students traveling farther to school there was a subset of students outperforming others — the students taking work-study programs or internships. (more…)

• The documentary about the rubber rooms for reassigned teachers comes out next month. (Post)
• The fight over charter schools is heating up, and political money is playing a big role. (Crain’s NY)
• The charter school State Sen. Malcolm Smith founded moved onto a donor’s land. (Daily News)
• Conditions at the school, Peninsula Prep, are subpar, without plans for improvement. (Daily News)
• A student who says the principal at NEST+m tried to have him arrested wrongfully is suing. (Post)
• More minorities were accepted to the city’s gifted kindergartens. (GothamSchools, Post, Daily News)
• Translators are key at parent conferences at Stuyvesant, where most students are Asian. (Times)
• Students at Brooklyn’s PS 269 forwent a bake sale to run laps for Haiti relief. (Daily News, NY1)
• Conservative columnist Andrea Peyser: New bake sale rules were devised by “demonic nannies.” (Post)
• A psychologist at Staten Island’s IS 72 was arrested for inappropriate sexual behavior. (Daily News)
• The Times says charter schools’ teacher evaluation systems are worth emulating.
• Nonprofits, including those working on education, are expecting a bad budget year. (Times)
• With budgets declining, states are having trouble coming through on their education vows. (NPR)
• Albany is cutting teachers after losing enrollment to charter schools. (Albany Times Union)
• D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee has hired a Democratic party image consultant. (Washington Post)
• Rhee isn’t rebuilding several decrepit schools as promised because of money woes. (Washington Post)
• The Wall Street Journal says choice and accountability, not standards, are the best education tools.
• In letters to the editor, readers tell the Times their thoughts on the push toward national standards.
• Chester Finn argues that American kids should go to school on Saturdays, too. (Wall Street Journal)

• Diane Ravitch, speaking on Morning Joe, said that education cuts will be “devastating.”
• Morning Joe also hosted Bill Perkins, who defended his opposition to charter schools.
• NPR gets the prize for most irreverent coverage of the bake sale ban.
• Kevin Carey: it’s okay for Ravitch to be wrong about some things, but not to say “everything” was wrong.
• A teacher shares his philosophy for keeping the “dreaded hitback” out of his classroom.
• A Midwestern teacher is writing an anonymous blog about her school lunches.
• Budget crises are forcing states to dial back on education measures they can no longer afford.
• Sherman Dorn says the federal government needs to be more humble about turnaround schools’ success
• Arthur Goldstein finds that his Chinese parents’ expectations from school give him culture shock.
• Goldstein, who is also a candidate on the ICE ticket for UFT elections, reminds teachers to vote.
• Charters spend a greater share of their budgets on teachers than the DOE does, Kim Gittleson finds.
• Peter Murphy argues that NYSUT abandoned its members who teach at Albany’s New Covenant charter.
• Some California students argue that their schools are unfairly labeled as “failing.”
• Illinois teachers wore pink to work today, to show support for their colleagues who just received pink slips.

City officials made the case today that a Brooklyn charter school should be the first to close before its charter expires.

East New York Preparatory Charter School was the subject of oral arguments today, as the school’s brand new board members tried to convince Department of Education officials to keep it open and officials from the charter school office argued for its closure.

Accused by both the city and state of egregious mismanagement, the school’s principal Sheila Joseph is alleged to have pushed students with low test scores out of the school, given herself a significant raise, and created an environment so unstable that Teach for America is threatening to pull all six of its members out of the building. Were the organization to severe all ties, the school would be left with two teachers. (more…)

The percentage of minority students in the city’s gifted and talented kindergarten classes increased this school year from last, according to data the Department of Education released today.

But while the percentages of Hispanic, Asian and multi-racial students all increased, the ratio of black students to the whole class declined by just over one percentage point. (more…)

A longstanding selling point of the charter school movement has been budget independence — that is, schools are given the freedom to allocate resources as they see fit, relatively free from government control. We decided to explore how this freedom is affecting allocation decisions. 

We analyzed the spending breakdown, specifically as it relates to teacher salaries and classroom instruction expenditures, and found that, on average, charter schools devote 10 percent more of their budgets to teacher salaries and 14 percent more of their budgets to classroom instruction as compared to the Department of Education’s budget for traditional schools. A full spreadsheet with individual school budgets, the total DOE budget, and our calculations is available here.

(more…)

“Why did you hit him?” I ask.

“He hit me first, I had to get my hitback.”

“There is no such thing as hitbacks. You tell me if someone touches you.”

“But my mom told me not to let people hit me or push me around.”

Oh lord, the hitback. I first met the hitback on my first day of school, as well as its foundation: “Mom told me so.” Recently, one mom spelled it out for me. (more…)

I was at parent-teacher conferences when one of my very best students walked in with her mom. I can’t speak Chinese, but a former student of mine, also from China, was in the room and volunteered to translate for me. I told Mom her daughter was wonderful, that she was learning fast and doing great. I told her if she were my daughter I’d be very proud. 

But Mom was not happy.

She asked, through my ex-student, why I didn’t teach like they did in China. Why wasn’t I giving extensive vocabulary lists for her daughter to memorize? Why wasn’t I giving her daughter the SAT words she’d be tested on? Why wasn’t I giving books full of those words? Well, I said, she’s only just arrived here, and I don’t think that’s what she needs just now. 

“You can’t tell Chinese parents anything,” confided my young translator, her hand covering her mouth. (more…)