GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

For years, the number of new teachers entering the city’s job market by way of alternative certification programs has been in the thousands. But this year the flood has slowed to a trickle.

When Chancellor Joel Klein announced a teacher hiring freeze last year, organizations that recruit and train new teachers, such as Teach for America and New York City’s Teaching Fellows, began planning to admit fewer teacher-hopefuls. Together, those two programs are planning to take fewer than 700 applicants this year, down from over 2,000 two years ago.

“We anticipate at this point that our needs will be more limited than they have been in past years, except for perhaps this year,” the Department of Education’s Executive Director of Recruitment and Teacher quality, Vicki Bernstein, told me in October. At the time, Bernstein, who oversees recruitment for the Teaching Fellows program, guessed that about 700 fellows would be admitted.

The real number of Teaching Fellows will be closer to 450, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Ann Forte. In 2009, the Teaching Fellows’ cohort numbered 700, which was already a significant drop from previous years when nearly 2,000 fellows entered the city’s schools annually. (more…)

After months of work and a fair amount of anxiety, test day finally arrived yesterday. As usual I did my best to calm the nerves of my students, and refreshingly, for the first time I didn’t have to calm my own.

I assured the kids that they were completely prepared, and reminded them of all the strategies they had learned to make the state reading test easier. I handed out keychains from my trip to California and told the kids they were good luck charms. I could see the kids loosening up. And finally when I told the kids that the practice test they had taken Friday was actually a fourth-grade exam I knew their confidence was boosted.

Once the test began I knew that I had been telling the kids the truth. They really were prepared, probably better prepared than any class I’ve taught before. I saw the kids highlighting important details, circling the title, writing notes in the margins, and highlighting clues in the questions. These were the types of techniques I avoided teaching, because I hated the idea of teaching to the test. While I still believe in that philosophy, I also believe that these strategies were worthwhile. The kids need coping mechanisms for the stressful, unnatural setting of the test.

What struck me most about today was the not the students, but the test itself. It seemed strangely … easy. (more…)

Writing in the pages of today’s New York Post, Marcus Winters, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, argues that charter schools might improve the chances for Black and Hispanic students to enter New York City’s prestigious exam high schools.  The key evidence for this is the fact that 2.4% of the Black and Hispanic eighth-grade students who attended charter schools in 2009 were offered admission to the eight exam schools, compared to 1.5% of the Black and Hispanic eighth-graders attending traditional public schools.  Comparing these rates, he states that Black and Hispanic eighth-graders in charter schools are 60% more likely to obtain a seat in the exam schools than their counterparts in traditional public schools.

It’s true that 2.4% is 60% more than 1.5%.  But both percentages round to the same whole number, 2.  So it’s hard to say that the likelihood of admission is dramatically different for students in charter and traditional public schools.  And, although Winters pays lip service to the notion that these data are solely descriptive, there’s no mistaking his desire to use these data to argue that the quality of charter schools is in fact responsible for this small increase.  “Charter schools could,” he writes, “increase minority access to the city’s esteemed high schools by offering a higher quality elementary and middle school education than is available in the traditional public schools system.”  Yep, that’s true, they could.  They could also be successful in recruiting some talented minority students with families that are highly motivated to help them succeed in school.  In the latter case, the primary dynamic is selection into charter schools, not their academic consequences.

By focusing on the relative rates of minority access to New York City’s specialized exam high schools for students in charter and traditional public schools, however, Winters has buried the lead.  The real story here is the fact that, in a system that is overwhelmingly made up of Black and Latino students, very few are getting into the most prestigious high schools.  71% of the eighth-graders in New York City’s traditional public schools are Black or Latino, but only 16% of the students offered seats in the specialized exam schools are Black or Latino.  Another way of representing the same information is to look at the probability of admission to the exam schools for members of different racial/ethnic groups.  As Winters noted, 1.5% of the Black and Latino eighth-graders in traditional public schools were offered admission to the specialized exam schools.  But 19% of the white and Asian eighth-graders attending such schools scored high enough on the entrance exam to be offered admission. (more…)

• Curriculum will not be managed centrally after a new city DOE reorganization. (GothamSchools, Times)
• Union officials and others are upset about the changes’ cost in a tight budget year. (Post, NY1)
• Minority students at charter schools were more likely to get into specialized high schools. (Post)
• The Post says State Sen. John Sampson is backing down on his proposed charter school special ed bill. 
• A fact-finder ruled last week against a Bronx Science dean accused of harassment. (Riverdale Press)
• Middle-class Brooklyn areas are losing city-funded after school programs. (Brooklyn Paper, Courier-Life)
• Student test scores will soon figure into New Haven teachers’ evaluation results. (New Haven Register)
• Teachers at failing Boston schools had until yesterday to apply to keep their jobs. (Boston Globe)

• The “strongest proposals” will get funded “whether they have tremendous buy-in or not” Duncan says.
• Duncan’s statement could inspire states to focus on reforms instead of buy-in, Andy Smarick writes.
• Are Baltimore, Newark, Austin & San Diego ready for Promise Neighborhoods? Academics weigh in.
• Miss Brave reveals her hidden teacher talents e.g. hushing an entire auditorium of children.
• The NY Times’ Robert Gebeloff, who put together a new school info database, is taking questions.
• Norm Scott posts footage of parents testifying at last week’s endless charter school hearing.
• If everyone is telling Klein that seniority is irrational, he’s not talking to teachers, a teacher writes.
• A UFT member reminds NY politicos that “actions have consequences” when it comes to elections.
• Whether Doug Lemov’s teaching system succeeds may depend on whether young teacher embrace it.
• Go here to vote for the three high schools that will be finalists in the RttT commencement challenge.
• The folks at Fordham want Cincinnati’s Clark Montessori to win. But Petrilli backs a Denver charter school.
• 9th graders in Cleveland write about how the school budget cut and layoffs will affect them.
• And a new bill would redefine professional development at the federal level.

The Division of Teaching and Learning is set to disappear under the latest reorganization at the city’s education department.

The move is part of a slate of changes intended to streamline the department’s organization, according to spokesman David Cantor. He called the changes, which include the creation of a deputy chancellor for community engagement position, “an organic next step” in the series of administrative shifts that have taken place under Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

The teaching and learning office, which is on its fourth leader since 2007, is getting folded into the Division of School Support, which contains the network structure that currently manages how schools receive administrative assistance. The new office will be called the Division of School Support and Instruction and will be headed by Chief Schools Officer Eric Nadelstern, giving him authority over the central piece of schools’ business for the first time.

“Obviously the aim is to make instruction as effective as can be, but I don’t think anyone’s going to see any kind of sudden shift in the way we go about teaching kids, and nor do we want that,” Cantor said. “The point is just to help do what we’re good at better.”

Under the changes, which will finish taking effect by July 1, the current head of teaching and learning, Santiago Taveras, will become the first-ever community engagement czar. Leaving behind his instructional past, Taveras will manage how the department presents to the public proposals that are set to come before the city school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy. (more…)

I have a difficult student in my classroom. My interaction with this student is often frustrating because it brings down my batting average. That is to say, while my classroom management, in general, gets better and better, I find myself held back by the necessity of addressing one student’s constant misbehavior. While this is a burden to any teacher, I believe that it is especially nettling to the beginning teacher, who clings to those moments of classroom harmony like precious manna. It is these moments, remember, that allow us to believe in ourselves as professionals. So the difficult student is especially difficult for us novices.

And how difficult he can be! It seems that there is nothing I can do to change his behavior. I have so many preventives, anticipatory maneuvers, and corrective procedures, but nothing effects any permanent change. It seems as if his wiring is just, well, different from the other kids. And I’m a teacher, not a neurosurgeon! After nearly eight months of agonizing, floundering, creative, and desperate struggles, I see that the boy is still exhibiting the same behaviors as at the beginning of the year. So it is in a spirit of self-defeat and exhaustion that I ask: What can I do with this boy?

The resounding answer, not simply at my school, but throughout the district and the city, is the same: special education.

Special education makes me very nervous, and on behalf of other beginning teachers I am soliciting opinions on the matter. I’ll begin with my anxieties, as these come more quickly to mind. (more…)

• Many districts want to switch to performance-based layoffs, which could still cost young teachers. (Times)
• The business practices of the country’s largest for-profit charter school company raise red flags. (Times)
• A profile of Harlem Success CEO Eva Moskowitz explains why she wants to mobilize parents. (NY Mag)
• State education officials say fewer students will pass this year’s state tests, which start today. (Post)
• Test prep helps Brooklyn’s PS 172 post high test scores despite having lots of needy students. (Times)
• Race to the Top’s second round has brought a new round of union-state skirmishes. (Wall Street Journal)
• State Sen. John Sampson wants charter schools to have a certain number of special ed students. (Post)
• Three up-and-coming Harlem politicians are weighing runs against State Sen. Bill Perkins this fall. (Post)
• Mayor Bloomberg criticized Perkins for opposing charter schools when he benefited from choice. (Post)
• The Post says it can’t wait for someone to officially throw his hat in the ring to unseat Perkins. 
• Families at University Heights High School in the Bronx continue to protest the school’s move. (Times)
• Global Tech Prep, a new school in Harlem, is using technology to engage its students. (Gotham Gazette)
• KIPP AMP Charter School wants out of the teachers union after joining last year. (GothamSchools, Post)
• The city’s plan to close the rubber rooms by December has some big logical flaws. (GothamSchools)
• The state and city teachers unions spent nearly $5 million lobbying in 2009, down from $6.6 million. (Post)
• More students from Queens’ PS 15 say a recently arrested teacher molested them, too. (Daily News)
• The Daily News says ed schools teach only “gobbeldegooky theory” by people such as “Thomas Dewey.”
• A tradition at Stuyvesant High School holds that students plan over-the-top prom proposals. (Post)
• Students who attended the high school fair for unplaced students faced only limited choices. (NY1)
• A math prodigy at Stuyvesant has been accepted to elite colleges — and he’s only in tenth grade. (Post)
• A student at Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx died suddenly during gym class. (NY1)
• A recent fight at a Bronx high school building dominated a speakout for Bronx teenagers last week. (NY1)
• Students enjoy competing in Double Dutch jumprope, the city schools’ newest varsity sport. (WNYC)

• Anna Phillips inaugurates a new series of school portraits with a trip to East New York’s P.S. 13.
• More unions are pulling the plug on support for their states’ round-two Race to the Top applications.
• Arne Duncan recently seems to have dropped out of the public RttT conversations, Politics K-12 notes.
• Mayor Michael Bloomberg blasted State Sen. Bill Perkins over his charter school stance.
• Leonie Haimson points out that Perkins is one of many Harlem politicians critical of charter schools.
• Peter Murphy of NYSCA: state audits would be too rare to make charter schools accountable.
• A federal grant will mean 20,000 new computers for low-income city sixth-graders next year.
• One school’s test prep: an ELA pep rally featuring superheroes and the Beyonce hit, “All the 3′s and 4′s.”
• Jay Mathews: the story that Garfield HS went downhill after teacher Jaime Escalante left is myth.
• A new law will force schools to report how much time their students are required to spend in gym.
• Colorado charter school teachers won a free speech case against the school’s principal.
• Andy Rotherham says Aspire Public Schools should be brought in to run the closing Stanford charter.
• And Kim Gittleson is building an interactive map of NYC schools and wants your help.