GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Principal hopefuls line up outside Wagner Middle School to enter the city's new school creation fair.

Bronx assistant principal Michelle Vargas wants to open a school where teachers will have ample time to work together and students will benefit from her years of experience in the classroom.

But before she can get started, Vargas must persevere through the city’s new school creation process. She took the first step Thursday night by joining more than 400 other school leader hopefuls at a fair to learn about what the city wants to see in new schools.

Every year, the Department of Education opens new schools — more than 400 since 2002. Director of Portfolio Planning Debra Kurshan told fair attendees that the city intends to keep up the pace in 2011.

What’s different this year is that the city is telling wannabe principals exactly what kind of schools it wants to open, and where it expects to site them. The request for proposals released today lists schools identified as having extra space and schools that could be reopened with new leadership under new federal rules. (more…)

Chancellor Joel Klein signed an order today to close a Brooklyn charter school that city school officials said had some of the most egregious charter violations they’d ever seen.

In June, East New York Preparatory Charter School will become the fourth charter school to close in the city’s history. In his recommendation to Klein that the school close, Deputy Chancellor John White wrote that although the charter school’s new board members acknowledged prior wrongdoing, many problems remained.

“ENYP has not presented any evidence responding to the findings that lower performing students were being involuntarily transferred from the school or discouraged from attending the school,” White wrote.

Klein’s decision marks an end to a contentious closure process that pitted parents who wanted the school to remain open against city officials charged with making sure the school followed its charter. (more…)

Yesterday, the Post published an article exposing a principal at PS 38 who tried to pressure her staff into giving her a good review on the annual Learning Environment Survey. This prompted Joel Klein to respond that he doubted teachers bowed to principal pressure since the surveys are anonymous. To investigate how teachers rated their principals, we looked at responses to four questions from last year’s Learning Environment Survey:

1. How much do you agree/disagree? The principal places the learning needs of children above other interests.
2. How much do you agree/disagree? The principal is an effective manager who makes the school run smoothly.
3. How much do you agree/disagree? I trust the principal at his/her word.
4. To what extent do you feel supported by your principal?

We found that the majority of teachers rate their principals highly. For instance, over 85 percent of the teachers who responded to the survey agreed that their principal supported them. (more…)

I confess: I’m gripped by whether the fictional McKinley High School glee club will win regionals. But right now I also love a short documentary that finds a similar real-life drama closer to home — will Brooklyn Tech’s girls step team ever win a competition?

“Step Brooklyn” follows the high school team through the 2008-09 school year as steppers audition, balance rehearsals with heavy course-loads, and try to win for the first time in years. It’s fascinating, and it’s currently up for a Webby award. (Full disclosure: “Step Brooklyn” was produced by three former classmates of mine, so I’m partial.)

Here’s a teaser from the documentary. You can watch the full half-hour video here.

When he announced that he would close the city’s infamous rubber rooms yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg declared, “To say that this is a big deal is an understatement.”

The agreement will shutter the reassignment centers where teachers accused of misconduct or incompetence wait idly for their cases to be heard, a process both the city and union have accused each other of dragging on interminably. But the deal, which was struck outside of formal contract negotiations, does little to resolve the most contentious issues the city and union have long fought over.

Yesterday’s rubber room agreement traded one largely-ignored time-line for hearing cases for a speedier one. Union and city officials pledged to strictly adhere to the faster schedule and clear out the backlog of cases by the end of the year.

“We want a faster, fairer process,” United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said. “That’s the way this process should work and that’s what this agreement does.”

The deal does little to make it easier to fire teachers for incompetence, a major goal of the Bloomberg administration that the union bitterly opposes.  Nor does it address a costlier problem: the pool of teachers who remain on the city’s payroll after losing their positions to school budget cuts or school closings. (more…)

• The rubber rooms for teachers under investigation will close. (Times, Post, Daily News, NY1, WNYC, AP)
• The Post and Daily News praise the rubber room agreement and note that it’s a win for the union.
• Chancellor Klein says the agreement brings needed “sanity” to the teacher discipline process. (Post)
• UFT President Michael Mulgrew says closing the rubber rooms has been a high priority. (HuffPo)
• A teacher in a Manhattan rubber room says he doesn’t believe the agreement will help him. (Post)
• A Bronx teacher who’s been in the rubber room for 1.5 years hopes he’ll be back to work soon. (Post)
• School survey results are accurate because teachers resist pressure, Chancellor Klein said. (Daily News)
• Despite its intentions, the city is cutting after-school programs with mostly needy children. (Daily News)
• The city says it plans to replace Paul Robeson High School regardless of whether it’s closed. (Post)
• In a letter, a former city teacher says city schools could benefit from weeknight proms, too. (Times)
• Bucking his party, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a bill that would have tied pay to test scores. (Times)
• A local school board deemed a charter school started by Stanford’s education school a failure. (Times)
• Hawaii parents are lobbying against the state’s budget-shortened school year. (Time Magazine)
• A judge ruled against a company that charged fees to bring Filipino teachers to the States. (USA Today)

• State Sen. George Onorato is pulling his support from the bill that would end seniority-based layoffs.
• Charter school supporters are among those looking for someone to run against Sen. Bill Perkins.
• Despite the rubber room deal, there’s no sign the union and city are any closer to a contract agreement.
• Norm Scott says there’s enough latitude in the new rubber room deal for abuse.
• A UFT member says this is the “first pure win” he’s seen as a part of the teachers union.
• P.S. 87 students made a video to prove to Chancellor Klein that their school is overcrowded.
• Miss Eyre says she can get behind teacher evaluation reforms, but not with Klein at the helm.
• NY’s State Education Department released its report cards for the 08-09 school year today.
• Florida Gov. Charlie Christ explains his decision to veto an anti-tenure bill on Facebook.
• Andy Smarick: it’s the most disappointing edu policy choice by a Republican in recent memory.
• “The NEA just flipped President Obama the bird and used Charlie Crist’s finger to do it.”
• Andy Rotherham sees an emerging alliance between unions and states annoyed by RttT.
• In the midst of RttT round two, Maine’s schools chief is stepping down.
• Jay Mathews singles out two Washington-area education blogs his readers should read.
• And a Harvard B-school student has launched a Digg-like site for education news.

In a previous post I introduced the problem of creating a classroom environment in which students care about their work. Today I would like to look at another successful approach, that of Ms. Ears.

Ms. Ears works with my class for one period a week, at the end of Friday. This is a loud, jovial, excited and generally unfocussed time to spend with my class. Friday is a day of games and celebrations, in my classroom, and Ms. Ears has to channel that celebratory energy into a 50-minute writing lesson. I am always impressed, then, to see my classroom so quiet and intent during her lessons, listening both to her and, crucially, to each other. When Ms. Ears is in the classroom, my children seem to be not only focused but also invested. In other words, they seem to care.

Ms. Ears creates an environment in which children know that their voices are heard, considered, weighed, possibly even judged by her and the other students. When Ms. Ears calls on a student, she gets none of the throwaway responses that I sometimes hear: the mumbling, the one-word answer, the thoughtless pause, the embarrassed giggle, the sidelong look to a friend, etc. When she calls on a student she elicits a careful response. She does this with her ears. (more…)

• State officials say NY won’t enter Race to the Top’s next round without a strong application. (Post, NY1)
• The city will announce a deal with the teachers union today closing the infamous rubber rooms. (Post)
• Inside a rubber room on a high school campus, teachers await trial for months and even years. (WNYC)
• The principal at Brooklyn’s PS 38 was taped berating teachers over how they rated her. (Daily News)
• The student who aired conditions at Paul Robeson HS says the school told her not to come back. (Post)
• The Post says Robeson’s response to the “whistle-blowing” is another reason that it should be closed.
• Assemblyman Jonathan Bing explains why he support a bill to end seniority-based layoffs. (Daily News)
• Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa has proposed a $23 billion bailout to stop teacher layoffs. (Washington Post)
• The Manhattan Institute’s Marcus Winters says NYC should not abandon cash incentives. (Daily News)
• Richard Slatkin, who founded the city’s autism charter school, shares his experience. (Fortune Magazine)
• American math teachers have weaker math skills than their counterparts in some other countries. (Times)