GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Three charter groups are paying a lobbyist, Patricia Lynch, $15,000 a month to boost their cause. (Post)
• Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver doesn’t seem to be warming to the charter school bill. (Post)
• Pro-charter groups and the teachers union are sparring in a series of ads. (GothamSchools, Post)
• A columnist says the Senate’s move to allow more charters shows democracy is thriving in Albany. (Post)
• The Post attacks the UFT’s Michael Mulgrew for exaggerating the charter school threat.
• Charter school advocates and union leaders have one thing in common: big pay checks. (Times Union)
• The UFT is dealing with disappointment from its own charter schools over a funding freeze. (WSJ)
• Charles Murray says he likes charters because they offer choice, not because of their test scores. (Times)
• Another principal was taped pressuring teachers to answer the school’s survey positively. (Daily News)
• An EPA proposal to reduce some safety standards in schools has drawn fire. (Daily News)
• A Michigan high school will have President Obama as its graduation speaker. (GothamSchools, Times)
• Pennsylvania’s state senate is pushing for more oversight of charter schools. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• D.C. officials are pleased by a jump in students’ still-low science test scores. (Washington Post)

• A survey finds the U.S. is likely to lay off 275,000 teachers in the next school year.
• In the debate over whether reform > consensus for RttT, Klein sides with reform.
• Dick Iannuzzi says the union is already negotiating the charter cap lift with Assembly members.
• Edward Murrow HS’s former principal, who put freedom over order, died on Monday.
• Sol Stern: NY’s tests are easier, checks on abuse are laxer, but with Tisch and Steiner there’s hope.
• The Equity Project charter school pays a lot and asks a lot, but is it a stable model, a teacher asks.
• Kim Gittelson posts a monthly round-up of the most-discussed academic research.
• Former Sect. of Labor Robert Reich calls for a public education bailout to avoid “armageddon.”
• A math teacher says the state’s claim that Integrated Algebra is as hard as the AP test is bogus.
• In this third year of teaching, Ruben Brosbe confronts a slump and the ensuing self-doubt.
• After evaluating her principal’s faculty conference, a teacher rates him “satisfactory.”
• Peter Murphy: the charter cap lift bill’s passage means the Assembly can’t afford to ignore it.
• Another bill that would end tenure is getting national attention, this time in Colorado.
• D.C. teachers union elections are coming up and apathy is likely to win, writes Andy Rotherham.
• Thousands of students failed New Jersey’s school exit exam and may drop out.
• And what do you suppose “basic sea lion enrichment and training” looks like?

Sharmin Mollick, a senior at Marble Hill High School for International Studies, works on a physics problem.

This is the first in a series of profiles of college-bound student recipients of scholarships administered by New Visions for Public Schools.

All it would take to keep Sharmin Mollick happy for life, it seems, is a good science laboratory.

Mollick’s school, the Marble Hill High School for International Studies, doesn’t have a fully-equipped lab. But for Mollick, even studying science publicly, in the daylight, has been a luxury.

That will change this fall, when 18-year-old Mollick heads to Cornell University to study biochemistry.

Listen to Sharmin Mollick discuss her studies and goals.

Mollick left Bangladesh with her mother and brother at 14, in part to avoid a marriage she said members of her extended family were trying to arrange for her. Like many Bangladeshi girls, Mollick attended primary school but was forced to drop out after seventh grade. (more…)

Fresh off a loss in the Senate yesterday, the United Federation of Teachers is taking its battle against charter school advocates to the airwaves.

The union’s new minute-long radio spot, which will air on 13 local stations starting today, accuses the pro-charter lobby of being “more interested in making money and ducking accountability than fighting for our kids.” The ad is a response to a media blitz from the pro-charter group Education Reform Now, which has been running online, radio and television ads asking voters to “stop listening to the teachers union.”

Both sides are ramping up media efforts as the legislative debate over whether and how to raise the state’s cap on charter schools picks up steam. Yesterday, the State Senate passed a bill that would more than double the number of charter schools allowed in New York, but the legislation faces a much rockier path in the Assembly.

Listen to the radio spot:

The full script of the ad is after the jump: (more…)

Everyone has bad lessons occasionally. At least that’s what my assistant principal tells me. And most of the time I don’t beat myself up too much when a lesson of mine goes off track, because more often than not I can pinpoint one or two things that I could have done differently to teach a much more successful lesson. As soon as I target what went wrong, I feel better and ready to apply those lessons.

Lately however, I feel like I’m in a bit of a slump. I had an informal observation with my principal that went less than perfectly, to put it diplomatically. Okay, to be honest it was pretty much a disaster. While I immediately recognized some issues with the lesson after my principal left, I didn’t see it as fundamentally flawed. My principal had a different opinion. And since that conversation, my confidence has been seriously shaken.

The rest of the day Friday I was in a funk, kind of fumbling through lessons. I spent all day yesterday planning for today, hoping to bounce back, but instead I felt even more frustrated. With all the planning, the question is what went wrong? Did I follow my lessons carefully enough? If I did, then I need to question my ability to plan effectively. My lessons follow the laundry list of criteria — they have a clear objective, they are standards-based, differentiated, and based on the needs of my students as demonstrated by data I’ve collected. They have a connection, guided practice, and independent practice. And yet today felt like a struggle from start to finish, and is inspiring a serious crisis of confidence that I haven’t felt since my first year of teaching.

The problem is, until recently, I felt that I had made enough progress as a teacher since my first year to no longer be considered a novice. (more…)

• The State Senate passed a bill to allow more charter schools. (GothamSchools, Times, Post, Daily News)
• The Post and the Daily News both praise the development in the Senate, which came as a surprise.
• Rumor has it that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was enraged by the Senate’s move. (Post)
• Education Secretary Arne Duncan is leading an unusually assertive education department. (Times)
• The city is planning a new school for a Harlem housing project. (GothamSchools, Post, Daily News, NY1)
• Joel Klein explains to Aussies why schools should track progress, not just performance. (The Australian)
• In a letter, the founders of the controversial Imagine chain of charter schools fire back. (Times)
• Philly’s schools chief got a $65,000 performance bonus in a tight budget year. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• Detroit is bringing Teach for America back to its schools, just as it’s laying off teachers. (Detroit News)

• Teachers union lobbyist Paul Egan is one of NYC’s 20 most influential unelecteds.
• Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott has been going back and forth to Albany to negotiate RttT legislation.
• Bloomberg hasn’t donated to a pro-charter school group, but “maybe I should” he said today.
• Charter school skeptic Sen. Bill Perkins has two rivals arranging a sit down to take his seat.
• Teachers at the city’s only public school for deaf children worry about another school sharing space.
• The range in principals’ knowledge is partly why special ed service vary so greatly, writes Beth Fertig.
• A private school consultant says tutoring could explain the increase in kids eligible for gifted programs.
• Members of NY’s state teachers union sprung into lobbying action when the charter bill was announced.
• Rick Hess worries some states are going too far to win RttT’s round two.
• The Chicago Tribune backs a school voucher creation bill for students in the worst schools.
• And programs that prepare Texas’ teachers can’t agree on what to teach.

The Harlem Children's Zone is planning to open a new building for one of its two charter schools on the grounds of the Saint Nicholas Houses. The school's proposed site is marked on the map in blue.

The city and the Harlem Children’s Zone announced a deal today that would create more charter school space in Harlem — without, officials hope, setting off a new front in the bitter space wars there.

The deal would have the city and philanthropists team up to fund construction of a new building on the grounds of a Harlem housing project, the Saint Nicholas Houses, HCZ President Geoffrey Canada and New York City Housing Authority Chairman John Rhea said.

The new building would eventually nearly double the number of students in HCZ schools without imposing on nearby district schools in Harlem. The convenient deal could avoid political headaches, but it will also likely raise questions about whether erecting a new $100 million building in Harlem is the best use of city capital dollars. (more…)

A bill that would more than double the number of charter schools allowed in New York passed the State Senate today to critics’ warnings that it would need an overhaul to win the Assembly’s approval.

Passed by a margin of 45 to 15, the bill would raise the charter school cap from 200 to 460 and would require the schools to serve at least half of the percentage of special education students and non-English speaking students that district schools enroll.

Senators who voted in favor of the bill said it would improve the state’s chances of winning $700 million in Race to the Top and help families stuck on charter school waitlists. Those opposed said the bill ignored major concerns about co-location, the state comptroller’s inability to audit the schools, and the number of charter schools that should be able to operate in a single district. (more…)