GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The city’s move to delay the first day of school rather than interrupt the first week back with a religious holiday  comes after weeks of a sustained email campaign by parents.

Since late May, parents have been circulating an email to Chancellor Klein calling on the city to begin the school year on Sept. 13. The current plan is for the first day of school to be Sept. 8, the Wednesday after Labor Day. But because Thursday and Friday are Rosh Hashanah, a major Jewish holiday, the schools will be closed. Students wouldn’t see their new teachers and classmates again until Monday.

Michelle Chiulla Lipkin, the PTA president at PS 199 on the Upper West Side, drafted the letter to the chancellor after realizing what she had to look forward to in September.

“I can imagine it now. Summer is over. My kids are ready with their backpacks and new haircuts and they go to school excited and nervous about the year ahead. And then they come home and stay there for four days until they go back to school and do it all over again,” she said. “We all know they won’t remember anything that their teacher said on Wednesday.” (more…)

• The DOE and teachers union are discussing delaying the first day of school to Sept. 13. (Daily News)
• The 4-year principal of PS 7 in the Bronx is leaving to be an education consultant. (Riverdale Press)
• Nicole Suriel’s death is raising questions about field trip rules. (Times, Post, Daily News, WSJ)
• The next step for a long-pending anti-bullying bill is Gov. Paterson’s approval. (Times)
• A Bronx principal found to have sexually assaulted staff once has been accused again. (Daily News)
• A Bronx student was murdered earlier this month on his way home from school. (Riverdale Press)
• Thirty-one states are teaming up to develop shared standardized tests. (USA Today)
• School libraries are being hit especially hard by budget cuts nationally. (AP)
• Momentum is growing for mayoral control of Detroit’s schools. (Detroit Free Press)
• Chicago’s school board agreed to lay off teachers by quality rating, not seniority. (Chicago Sun-Times)

• Video of a walkout during a Harlem charter space hearing. (Norm Scott)
• The city will investigate the death of Nicole Suriel of Columbia Secondary. (Post)
• The DOE is looking for someone to oversee its quality reviews. (Simply Hired)
• Staten Island’s famous PS 22 chorus graduates to “Man in the Mirror.” (PS 22)
• Assemblyman Gottfried seems to support Education Reform Now. (NYC Public School Parent Blog)
• Rank-and-file teachers at odds with AFT President Randi Weingarten. (Eduwonk)
• Applications to remake American tests are in. (EdWeek, password-protected)
• Who will govern the new assessments once they exist? (Fordham)
• An argument that reducing teaching jobs is a good thing. (Big Government)
• Chicago’s schools chief wants more than just seniority to determine layoffs. (Catalyst)
• “Chasers”: the people who go after truants and dropouts. (Take Part, via Russo)
• A slightly hidden, very-high graduation rate in D.C. uncovered. (Jay Greene)

Last night, Murry Bergtraum High School chapter leader John Elfrank-Dana criticzed the city's decision to hire an executive principal without teachers' input.

After dodging layoffs by eliminating raises for teachers and city administrators for the next two years, the city is hiring principals with potential $25,000 bonuses.

Two years ago, the Department of Education began offering veteran principals the chance to earn yearly bonuses for improving test scores and graduation rates at struggling schools. Despite deep cuts to the city’s education budget, and four percent cuts to schools, the city is continuing the program this year. A source with knowledge of the city’s hiring for next year said as many as eight new executive principals will be brought in to lead schools on the brink of closure, most of them high schools.

DOE officials would not name the incoming executive principals or where they’ll work, and it may be the case that not all of them have been hired. (more…)

New Design High School social studies teacher Tad Donozo, right, helps coach 11th grade U.S. history students for next week

It was exactly a week before juniors at New Design High School would sit for their American History Regents exam, but you might not know it from the hip-hop beats emanating from a stereo at the front of the class.

But you’d know by listening to the song’s lyrics, which discussed essay-writing strategy.

And after the song ended, one student kept going. ”Don’t just describe — analyze,” he rapped. “Write what you mean, discuss the theme.”

The class was in the midst of reviewing the U.S. History Regents curriculum using a pilot program called Fresh Prep, which wrote its own hip-hop songs to help students remember facts, concepts and test-taking strategies.

The program’s creators are trying to prove that music and arts can help boost student test scores in core subjects like history and English. They’ve already seen some success: When they ran the program on a smaller scale last year, the vast majority of students passed their exams.

Listen to one of Fresh Prep’s U.S. History Regents songs, “Turn of the Century.” You can listen to all of the program’s songs on its website.
(more…)

The city’s Department of Education, Teach for America and several city charter school management companies are angling for federal money designed to encourage cutting-edge educational strategies.

They’re among 145 New York State-based entities that applied for grants under a new federal program known as the Investing in Innovation Fund, or “i3.” Details about the 1,698 applications submitted last month went online yesterday.

Here’s a snapshot of some of the ways local groups are hoping to cash in:

• The city is asking for $40 million to open 150 new small middle and high schools in the next five years.
• The city also asked for $5 million to grow the School of One technology program and $4.5 million to boost the arts in special education schools.
• Other groups angling to open new schools include Eva Moskowitz’s Harlem Success charter network, which is seeking $25 million to open 13 in the next five years, and New Visions for Public Schools, which wants $26 million to create charter schools that serve 10,000 city students. (more…)

• The State Senate passed an anti-bullying bill that it had passed on seven times before. (Daily News)
• The field trip where a 12-year-old Harlem girl drowned was “chaotic.” (Times, Daily News, Post, NY1)
• Small schools help their students graduate faster, a report found. (GothamSchools, AP, Post, NY1)
• A New Jersey couple faked an address to send their daughter to LaGuardia. (GothamSchools, Daily News)
• A plan to give Clinton Middle School its own space was officially approved yesterday. (NY1)
• John Deasy of the Gates Foundation was named number two in Los Angeles’s schools. (L.A. Times)

• A 12-year-old Harlem student drowned on a school field trip to the beach today. (City Room)
• Gov. Paterson said that he expects a state budget passed by next Monday. (Daily Politics)
• The Regents cut the state test program between $4 and $10 million, depending on the budget. (NYSED)
• Bloomberg, Mulgrew, Logan and Weingarten will lobby Congress tomorrow for the edujobs bill. (no link)
• Here’s a map of the 111 schools the city has closed since 2002. (GothamSchools)
• A teacher nominates the worst question on this month’s math Regents exams. (JD2718)
• Singer Mary J. Blige will speak at a small all-girls Bronx school graduating its first class. (City Room)
• Poor nutrition could be the link between tooth decay and childhood obesity, researchers say. (NPR)
• School meals lead to better grades but not better health, a new study says. (Inside School Research)
• A study of the D.C. vouchers program found mixed results. (Quick and the Ed)
• A principal wonders why the national reform agenda includes many unproven strategies. (Answer Sheet)
• A group of church leaders is also calling Obama’s reform movement into question. (Dewey 21C)

The city’s small, non-selective high schools significantly boost disadvantaged students’ chances of graduating, a new report concludes.

The report (available in full below) is the latest in a series of studies from New York-based research firm MDRC and funded by the Gates Foundation, which put $150 million into the growth of small schools in the city. Replacing large, struggling high schools with small ones has been one of the centerpieces of Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s reform efforts.

For the group of students researchers followed, the small schools had a nearly 69 percent graduation rate, compared to a roughly 62 percent rate for students in the study’s control group. Researchers reported that the positive impact of enrolling in a small school began during students’ freshman year and was sustained over the next three years. And, the study found, the benefits applied to a wide variety of students, including low-income students of color.

The study looked at the academic records of a subset of the small schools launched under Klein — about a hundred “small schools of choice.” The schools were chosen because more students applied to them than the school had room for, and thus admissions were determined by random lottery. Researchers could thus compare students who applied and enrolled in the small schools to those who applied but were assigned elsewhere. (more…)

City Councilman Brad Lander speaks at a rally today to oppose school lunch cuts. (Courtesy: Lander's office)

Last month, city officials announced a plan to save $3 million by reducing the number of students receiving free lunch next year. Today, elected officials and child advocates struck back from the steps of City Hall.

The group was arguing that the city’s plan to end the practice at some schools of providing free lunch to all students, not just those who fill out forms proving their need, could force some hungry students go unfed.

“For many low-income kids, universal free lunches are depended-upon meals,” Councilwoman Letitia James said in a statement. “We all know that children need nutrients and nourishment to best process information throughout the day. Cutting universal free lunches would, in effect, be impairing children’s ability to learn. This is not an acceptable proposal.”

The city has said it expects to save $24 million in total by changing its school lunch program. Other changes include reducing the number of hot options at all schools and cutting 276 food service employees. (more…)