GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• A state appeals court heard arguments in the union’s school closure suit. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• The Obama administration boosted a $23 billion measure to avoid teacher layoffs. (Washington Post)
• A Queens charter school will move out of trailers and into a former Catholic school building. (Daily News)
• Some teachers argue the new teacher evaluation deal will prompt more teaching to tests. (WSJ)
• Colorado lawmakers passed a bill to count student test scores for half a teacher’s evaluation. (WSJ)
• Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera said he will support the Senate’s version of the charter cap lift. (Post)
• The former chair of the Assembly Ed Committee explains why he’s now a charter supporter. (Daily News)
• Queens lawmakers spoke out against drastic cuts to city school budgets. (Queens Chronicle)
• The Guggenheim Museum will showcase the artwork of city public school students. (Daily News)
• A school safety officer handcuffed a 9-year-old P.S. 178 student for two hours after a fight. (Daily News)
• Under a new bill proposed in California, parents of chronically truant students could face jail time. (Times)

• The coming teacher layoffs may be connected to a boom period of teacher hiring.
• Birth of a narrative: UFT activists accuse hedge funders of profiting off charter schools.
• Old narrative: The DOE is looking to hire a business consultant to work on assessment.
• New York’s teacher evaluation system is the first by a state whose test-score portion is below 50%.
• What do New York State tests measure: student learning or student knowledge?
• More than 1,600 groups applied for the U.S. Dept of Ed’s $650 million “i3″ competition.
• That means that roughly 800 groups (at least one NYC app among them) waited till the last minute.
• Somebody should make a GED for college students, says Chad Aldeman.
• NPR goes inside a Dubai college campus that offers a U.S. education — including, soon, NYU.
• The head of the D.C. teachers union didn’t get enough petitions in and might get ousted.
• Gotham Gazette breaks down when all the city budget hearings are, and where.
• A lesson plan on writing courtesy of the New York Times.
• And this math teacher’s talk on teaching at TED is really worth watching.

City lawyers asked a panel of appellate court judges today to overturn a lower court ruling that halted the Department of Education’s plans to shutter 19 schools.

But in oral arguments, the judges seemed warmer to the arguments of lawyers representing the city teachers union, who sued to stop the school closings.

If the appellate court overturns the initial ruling, the 19 schools could begin phasing out starting in the fall. If not, the city will have to wait to re-launch the school closing process until next year. Either way, the case will likely end up writing a sort of court-approved plan for how the city builds its case to shutter low-performing schools in the future.

The lower court ruling, handed down by Judge Joan Lobis in March, found that the city’s public process to close the 19 schools contained “significant violations” of state education law. At the time, city lawyer Michael Cardozo disputed Lobis’ conclusion that the city had not followed the law’s public notification and hearing requirements. But he did not argue with the justice’s ruling that the DOE’s statements analyzing the impact of shuttering schools on surrounding communities were inadequately detailed.

Today, city lawyer Alan Krams made essentially the opposite claim: He agreed with the lower court that the city violated public hearing requirements, but disputed the idea that the DOE produced inadequate impact reports for each of the schools. (more…)

Real cuts to schools could be as high as $750 million, but projections for next year’s school budget are still plagued by uncertainty, and the Department of Education is still figuring out how cuts will affect individual schools.

That was the message of a webinar Chancellor Joel Klein held yesterday for the city’s principals to update them on next year’s dire budget scenario.

Listen to Klein’s webinar with principals:

Klein explained that in addition to the nearly $500 million city officials are projecting will be cut from state school aid, the school system’s uncontrollable costs, like special education and scheduled salary increases, will also rise by $250 million.

But it’s still unclear how those cuts will be spread around to individual schools, Klein said. The chancellor pledged to send schools preliminary budgets by June 1, giving principals at that time the information they will need to plan for next year.

Klein also gave detailed descriptions of two possible methods for deciding how many teachers in each license area will be laid off. “If you think this was written by Kafka, you’re right,” Klein said. (more…)

The day after the state and union announced a deal to use student test scores in teacher evaluations, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew faced his members last night at a meeting of the union’s ruling body.

A UFT chapter leader sent us this report from the monthly delegate assembly, comprised of representatives of the teachers at each school. The account offers a glimpse of how Mulgrew is pitching the deal to teachers, many of whom are skeptical of the plan:

The scene was surreal to start. The room was packed but the tone was hushed.  It felt like the crowd had come to listen to Mulgrew explain himself and the recent overhaul of the evaluation system.

Mulgrew disputed press accounts that test scores will make up 40 percent of a teacher’s evaluation, the chapter leader said. State test results will account for 20 percent, Mulgrew explained. Another 20 percent of the evaluations will come from students’ progress on local measures of student learning. The local assessments, which could be tests but don’t have to be, must be negotiated locally between the city and the union.

Chancellor Joel Klein has already expressed displeasure over how much of the plan is left to negotiation. Colorado and Louisiana, by contrast, are both pursuing evaluation overhauls that would base 50 percent or more of a teacher’s rating on student test score progress.

Here’s our rundown of the evaluation deal, and the chapter leader’s full account of the meeting is below the jump: (more…)

• An SCA contractor is accused of stealing $2 million by failing to pay his workers properly. (Daily News)
• A new website matches local science teachers to scientists who want to volunteer. (NY1)
• Tribeca’s P.S. 234 halved its kindergarten wait list by adding a sixth class. (Tribeca Trib)
• The Daily News: Tuesday’s plan should just be the first step in overhauling teacher evaluations.
• Letter-writers to the Post argue in favor of the city’s seniority-based layoff system.
• A Washington Post columnist argues the federal government should offer buyouts to senior teachers.
• The city’s high school baseball league is posting the number of pitches students throw per game. (Times)
• Social networking sites are helping teens make sure they don’t wear the same dresses to prom. (Times)
• Eight upstate school districts earned a national distinction for music education. (Democrat & Chronicle)
• A court barred Los Angeles from laying off teachers at three low-performing middle schools. (L.A. Times)
• Selective colleges aren’t seeing a decline in the number of students accepting offers of admission. (Times)
• Two Queens schools were the sites of cases of alleged sexual abuse. (Daily News)

• Thousands of schools, districts and non-profits were expected to submit i3 grant apps by today’s deadline.
• Arizona’s governor banned “ethnic studies” classes, outlawing Tucson’s schools’ Chicano history program.
• The Times’ Freakonomics podcast visits a School of One classroom at the Bronx’s I.S. 339.
• Joanne Jacobs suspects that educational leadership is harder to teach than business management.
• SeeThrough NY published a list of more than 1,000 retired state educators’ pensions.
• The UFT’s New Action party, which supported Mulgrew, opposes the new teacher evaluation plan.
• Here’s some evidence that Miss Brave has a future lawyer among her second graders.
• The field of education research took some knocks last month, Debra Viadero reports.
• Sen. Tom Harkin doesn’t think an emergency teacher jobs bill is the place to address questions of tenure…
• …While Rick Hess thinks Harkin’s teacher “bailout” bill is a silly idea all around.
• Ed Reform Now is running new ads protesting seniority-based layoffs and has a new website, too.
• Teachers at Chicago’s first unionized charter reached a tentative contract agreement.
• A UFT member takes issue with Eva Moskowitz’s claims about charter schools and special ed students.
• Celebrity chef Rachael Ray helped Sen. Gillibrand lobby for more federal money for school lunches.
• And Ray will join Mayor Bloomberg to promote school gardens at P.S. 29 tomorrow. (No link)