GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Mayor Bloomberg said he’s not going to offer senior teachers a retirement incentive. (Daily Politics)
• He also said it’s likely the city will have to make more cuts. (State of Politics)
• A Department of Education official is leaving to kick anti-gay marriage legislators out of office. (Times)
• Bloomberg get a “D” for letting Albany compromise Klein’s charter authorizing power. (City Hall)
• President Obama is relying on the Senate to save Race to the Top from millions in cuts. (WaPo)
• Thirteen senators have written a letter in opposition to the cuts. (Edweek)
• Jonathan Alter says cuts had to be made, but Obey pulled from the wrong places. (Newsweek)
• There could be a silver lining to cutting funding from RttT: more qualified winners. (Flypaper)
• A parent says her school is squeezed but the city says it can enroll more students. (NYC Parent blog)
• A teacher wonders what Bill Gates will say to a teachers union convention. (NYC Educator)
• In time for CA’s upcoming budget fight, a report says its schools are underfunded. (Educated Guess)
• And Stephen Sawchuk promises coverage of the new teachers union conventions. (Edweek)
• Finally, we’re extending our long weekend through Tuesday. Enjoy the break and see you next week!

An independent filmmaker group will screen “Waiting for Superman” next Saturday, unveiling the much-hyped film about American education before its fall release.

Director Davis Guggenheim has said he wants “Waiting for Superman” to persuade the public that education is “the issue of our time,” just as his earlier film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” energized people around environmentalism. And he’s gotten help from Bill Gates as he works to do that. The film, which I saw last week, vividly depicts the challenges facing public schools. It also endorses charter schools as a solution to the country’s education challenges and depicts teachers unions as a major impediment to improvement.

Guggenheim’s viewpoint has won the film criticism already from teachers union president Randi Weingarten. But her criticism only goes so far; at a recent screening of the film in Silver Spring, Maryland, the Washington Post reported that she joined Guggenheim and D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee in a walk down the red carpet.

The film will be screened at Envision, an event about documentaries that raise global issues. I’m hosting a panel about “Waiting for Superman” after it’s screened. More details about the event are here and below. And you can RSVP here (click “Registration”) — and get a ticket at a lower rate ($25, down from $35) by using the discount code IFPENV. (more…)

Source: Checkbook NYC

The Department of Education has spent more money this calendar year than any other city agency, racking up enough expenses to account for about a quarter of total city dollars.

That’s one nugget from of a host of financial information now available through a database Comptroller John Liu’s office launched yesterday that gives real-time updates to city expenses.

The database, called “Checkbook NYC,” currently reports around $40 billion in spending across city agencies since January 1. During that time, the Department of Education spent more than $10 billion.

The site lists each city agency’s total spending, then breaks down that total into categories of spending. For the DOE, those categories include central administration spending, general and special education instruction and school leadership, school food and student transportation. From there, users can click through and see each how much the department spent on individual transactions with vendors. (more…)

Chancellor Joel Klein often trumpets the importance of giving principals the power to hire the teachers they want. But Klein’s own ability to select his staff could soon be compromised.

A court case decided in 2007, known as the Long Beach decision, requires New York City (and municipalities throughout the state) to fill certain positions by hiring off of lists of people who’ve passed Civil Service exams. Most of these jobs are administrative or clerical — they include secretaries and associate supervisors of school security — but some are also held by high level managers, chiefs of staff, and some of the department’s press team.

Currently, many of these jobs are held by people classified as provisional employees, meaning they never took the exams because the exams didn’t exist or were given too infrequently. Over the next several years, all city agencies will have to significantly cut down on the number of provisional workers, either by laying them off or having current employees take Civil Service tests. (more…)

• With a hiring freeze in place, nearly 23,000 people applied to become teachers this year. (Post)
• Two schools in one building in Brooklyn post very different results. (Wall Street Journal)
• An appeals court blocked 19 school closures. (GothamSchools, Times, Post, Daily News, WSJ, NY1)
• Chancellor Klein writes that the ruling is a “tragic” blow to his reform efforts. (Daily News)
• Pedro Noguera and a colleague say school closures aren’t the best way to help kids. (City Limits)
• Juan Gonzalez says recent audits suggest principals have too much financial authority. (Daily News)
• Chicago’s high-intensity efforts to curb youth violence have officials optimistic. (Times)
• Los Angeles is again accepting applications from groups to take over its schools. (L.A. Times)
• D.C.’s school budget plans involve big cuts to special education costs. (Washington Post)