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Department of Education and teachers union officials could have a deal within weeks that would shrink the number of teachers sitting in rubber rooms.

Sources within the United Federation of Teachers said that the two sides have been negotiating for several weeks outside of contract talks, which have stalled, but would not give any specifics about how the population of teachers in the rooms might be reduced.

The rubber rooms, technically called “reassignment centers,” are student-less classrooms where about 650 teachers and administrators accused of misconduct or incompetence report for duty every day as they wait to be officially charged or have their cases heard. The wait can sometimes stretch over years, during which teachers receive their full salaries. According to Chancellor Joel Klein, last year the city spent some $30 million covering these teachers’ salaries. (more…)

Despite a growing popular consensus that teacher quality is the most significant factor in academic achievement, as a parent and taxpayer the costs and practicality of this focus concern me. Chancellor Joel Klein focuses keenly on better teacher quality. I agree a strong teacher is crucial, especially for low-income students. But the value of our efforts to identify high-quality instructors and ease the removal of low-quality teachers is questionable.

For starters, the value-added measurements at the core of the relevant evaluation systems are nascent at best, as their developers readily admit. The Department of Education has calculated school report cards three different ways in the last three years; this is appropriate flexibility for a new concept, but not indicative of an established metric. Notwithstanding its motives, the teachers union raises a reasonable complaint that valued-added measurements are not ready for prime time. When reformers deny this, their credibility suffers as much as the union’s.

But still, let’s imagine we build the world’s best evaluation system. (more…)

We’ve been getting out our aprons and whisks for the “bake-in” planned at City Hall Park on Thursday.

We’re anticipating hundreds of parents joining us to protest the new Chancellor’s Regulation A-812, which prohibits home-baked foods from being sold at school fundraisers while requiring Doritos and Pop-Tarts instead. Yes, this regulation mandates that if we want to sell food to raise money for our schools, it has to be junk food that we buy through the Department of Education or at Costco! Home-baked cookies and banana bread aren’t good enough to help parents raise money for desperately needed arts, sports, and extracurricular programs.

At the bake in, we’ll have two tables set up: One will display the single-serving packages of Fritos, Pop-Tarts, and Doritos required under the new regulation, the other delicious, home-cooked food prepared by parents and their children. We’ll show off the ingredients of all the foods, so that parents and passersby can decide for themselves which treats are better for children. (more…)

• The Obama administration released its plan for reauthorizing the national education law. (Times)
• The plan favors high expectations and college readiness. (Christian Science Monitor, Bloomberg)
• Various groups are already gearing up for a fight over the plan. (USA Today, Wall Street Journal)
• Chancellor Klein said the plan is a good start but needs more specific school closure criteria. (Post)
• Ed Sec Arne Duncan wants to replace NCLB’s pass-fail school criteria with three ratings. (USA Today)
• The first week of school this fall will include only one day, Wednesday. (Daily News)
• Students from 20 city schools competed in a math video game tournament at Columbia. (Post, NY1)
• Three students were stabbed at city schools on Friday. (GothamSchools, Post)
• Elected officials are asking why metal detectors didn’t prevent the stabbings. (Daily News, NY1)
• The number of students trying to transfer to CUNY colleges this fall is up more than 75 percent. (Post)
• One public schooler will help represent the city at the national spelling bee. (Daily News)
• A panel said NYC discriminated against Khalil Gibran’s principal. (GothamSchools, Times, Daily News)
• The Post says that while the test score audit underway might not be ideal, it’s long overdue.
• The Daily News says potential cuts to GED programs are politically motivated.
• The Post says the state should find ways to cut costs without eliminating Regents exams.
• Stanley Crouch praises an after school and mentoring program in Harlem. (Daily News)
• Students at Central Falls High School say their soon-to-fired teachers have helped them. (AP)
• Diane Ravitch says history shows that there’s no single solution to improving schools. (L.A. Times)
• Texas’s textbook panel voted to inject a conservative outlook into the state’s social studies books. (Times)
• A school in Newark has hired a coach to teach students how to behave better at recess. (Times)
• New Jersey’s massive school budget cuts will end a major after-school program this week. (Times)

• The Texas Board of Ed approved a new set of social studies standards promoted by conservatives.
• Teachers at Bronx Academy of Promise Charter School announced that they want to unionize.
• Marilyn Gittell, a longtime advocate of community control of city schools, died at age 78.
• The Times has a call out for school bake-in-inspired recipes.
• Jay Mathews takes the “Remember the Titans” school to illustrate how numbers can mask good schools.
• Miss Mimi tried to find a bright side to national standards, but explains why she doesn’t think it’s there.
• A D.C. biology teacher might just be the nation’s only female varsity high school football coach.
• A general ed teacher explains why she usually avoids attending her special ed students’ IEP meetings.
• A Bronx teacher harnesses increased public interest in ed reform to finance his students’ New Orleans trip.
• A teacher explains he shared the results of his data report because it is both meaningless and meaningful.
• The student whose school canceled prom rather than allow her to bring her girlfriend made the TV rounds.
• Chancellor Joel Klein called the city’s graduation rates “a tribute to the mayor’s leadership” on MSNBC.
• And Diane Ravitch said she think the feds should mandate that all students study music.

The former principal of a dual-language Arabic-English school was forced to resign by city officials who discriminated against her, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found today.

A report by the commission found that in 2007, when Khalil Gibran International Academy interim principal Debbie Almontaser was forced to resign, Department of Education officials acted out of ethnic and religious bias. Almontaser, an Arab Muslim, was asked to leave the school after some found comments she made in the press offensive and began a campaign to paint her as an extremist. Since then, the school has struggled to get back on its feet and Almontaser is arguing that she should be allowed to have her old job back.

The commission’s report states that “the DOE succumbed to the very bias that the creation of the school was intended to dispel, and a small segment of the public succeeded in imposing its prejudices on the DOE as an employer.” It goes on to suggest that the DOE consider reinstating Almontaser. (more…)

Yesterday, we wondered who would make up the team traveling to Washington to pitch New York’s Race to the Top proposal to federal officials.

Today, we know: State Education Commissioner David Steiner will be joined by his deputy commissioner, John King, along with Robert Hughes, president of the school support organization New Visions for Public Schools. Two other officials from the state education department, Ira Schwartz and Laura Smith, will also travel to D.C. to make the presentation, Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said today.

Steiner and King, the top two officials at the state education department, are not surprises. Both have been among the most visible public faces of the state’s reform agenda, and Steiner’s plan to overhaul the way teachers are trained and certified is one of the centerpieces of the state’s Race to the Top application. (more…)

When it comes to New York City charter schools’ co-location in district buildings, the current debate has generated far more heat than light-and even the heat is exaggerated.

The casual observer could be forgiven for thinking something like this: Charter school co-location involves widespread “space wars” provoked by elitist outsiders who invade neighborhood schools, exacerbate over-crowding, and take more than their share of scarce resources.” Yet every one of these impressions is wrong. In this column, I’ll explain why, and I’ll also offer my suggestion for a way to make the co-location process more fact-based.

1.  Charter school students are neighbors, not invaders. They come from the same districts and communities as children in co-located public schools. They are public school students, who would still need to be educated in a neighborhood school building if charter schools disappeared tomorrow.

No, charter students aren’t statistically identical in every respect; at the district level, charter students are more likely to be African American and somewhat less likely to have special needs (the reasons for this are complicated). (more…)