GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Bloomberg: If you send your kid to a once-closing school, you need “an education.” (Daily News)
• More concerns e-mailed in about the principal at Columbia Secondary School. (City Room)
• Teachers, mark Staples’ teacher-discount-day on your calendars. (NYSUT)
• Edward Cullen did pass the twelfth grade, and beyond, thank you very much. (Answer Sheet)
• New Orleans is trying to rebuild its education system — and its school buildings. (Good)
• One-time Race to the Top enemy Obey now favors spending more on it. (EdWeek)
• A Wisconsin court finds that teacher e-mails are private. (Milwaukee J-S)
• What it looks like inside the Gates Foundation’s Seattle headquarters. (The Guardian)
• College students say they didn’t learn to write papers in high school. (Class Struggle)

The state education department will spend nearly $48 million over the next three years completing a database that will track students’ test scores, courses and teachers from the beginning of their schooling to the end.

The database system has been hailed by state education officials as a key tool in their reform efforts. It’s intended to help the state use student test scores and grades to judge not only schools and teachers but also the programs that trained the teachers, for example. Education officials also say the system will be instrumental in helping identify students at risk of dropping out of school early on.

The state already tracks some information about students from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The data system launched in the 2006-07 school year with an expected cost of $39.4 million over six years. The system got off to a rocky start, plagued by delays in reporting data.

In a memo to the Board of Regents in advance of their Monday meeting, State Education Department Deputy Commissioner John King argued that the current system, while improved, doesn’t meet the needs of schools or help advance Regents’ policy goals. He continued:

Furthermore, the system was not user-friendly; school officials complained frequently about the infamous electronic “spinning cube” that caused long delays in reporting and verifying data. Data collection was therefore slow, and the Department missed federal deadlines in reporting school accountability and other results. (more…)

Enrollment numbers at high schools that the city had targeted for closure are on the rise, but still far below past years’ levels.

After a judge’s ruling postponed closures at 19 schools — 14 of them high schools — many of the schools began reporting that they were severely under-enrolled. Metropolitan Corporate Academy had eight incoming ninth graders and Jamaica High School in Queens had 23 — a number so low the school’s principal doubted he’d be able to have a freshman class. Now that the city has completed its second round of high school placements, more students are set to enter these schools next year.

But the numbers are still extremely low. While there are now 23 students enrolled at Metropolitan Corporate Academy, the school traditionally saw an incoming freshman class of between 70 and 100 students. Many of these schools still have enrollments too low for them to support a ninth grade program. If the city does not assign them more students, they could be forced to phase out their ninth grades, skirting the court’s ruling that the schools should remain intact.

A spokesman for the Department of Education said the city expects the enrollment numbers to climb. (more…)

• Teachers at Nicole Suriel’s school want more consequences for their principal. (Times, WSJ, Post)
• The principal’s tenure became effective days after Suriel drowned on a field trip. (Daily News)
• The Daily News says administrators at Suriel’s school should have been fired, not just censured.
• The city is reviewing field trip rules, with an eye toward raising the number of adults required. (NY1, CBS)
• A judge ruled that a lawsuit about class size can continue, over the city’s objections. (Times)
• Juan Gonzalez praises the deal that gives extra help to schools the city had tried to close. (Daily News)
• George Tarr survived life in war-torn Liberia before becoming McKee HS’s valedictorian. (S.I. Advance)
• N.J. Gov. Chris Christie wants to cap school administrators’ salaries at $175,000. (AP)