GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• 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)

• Most school districts have already run out of stimulus dollars. (Ed Money Watch)
• How a real first-grade teacher uses Facebook to enhance her class. (Innovative Educator)
• Parents wading in to high school admissions, read this and start now! (Insideschools)
• In a cover profile, Bill Gates says it’s “not fair” to say small schools failed. (Business Week)
• Gates recently attacked “fraudulent” accounting for misreporting teacher pension costs. (WSJ)
• Coming national are high but not as rigorous as Massachusetts’. (Boston Globe blog)
• Many suburban Chicago-area teachers make six figure salaries. (Tribune)
• New opportunities to nurture education entrepreneurs emerge. (Flypaper)
• An arts education expert reminds us that “schooling is hard change.” (Dewey21C)

One of the most heralded parts of the new charter law forced charter schools to enroll more students with disabilities, learning English, and living in poverty.

But that will be trickier than it sounds.

The most immediate problem is access to data. The state’s two main charter school authorizers, the State University of New York’s Charter School Institute and the state education department, are tasked with setting enrollment targets that its charter schools must meet.

The crucial piece of information that SUNY needs to set its targets is how many needy students currently attend charter schools and neighborhing district schools. The law mandates that charter schools aim to enroll and retain needy students at “comparable” rates to other public schools in the district. (more…)

In the hustle to clear the rubber rooms by the end of the year, the city is mainly settling with teachers charged with infractions — not firing them.

Numbers released by the teachers union today show that in the last six months, the city has cleared nearly half the cases of teachers awaiting trial. The number of teachers charged with misconduct or incompetence has gone from nearly 300 to about 170 since April, when the city and union announced a deal to expedite hearings. (The city, which keeps separate records, reported slightly different numbers.) Union officials said today that most of these cases have been settled by having teachers retire, resign, or pay fines.

One reason the number of settlements is on the rise is that the city has a newfound willingness to settle cases rather than take them through lengthy and costly hearings. Ridding schools of inept teachers has been a priority for the city’s Department of Education, but progress has been slow and very few teachers have been successfully fired for incompetence. (more…)

• The city and union agreed to a plan for housing new schools. (GothamSchools, Daily News, NY1, Times)
• A state court rejected the city’s plea to fire a Staten Island teacher who flirted with a student. (Post, AP)
• The city punished those who ran Nicole Suriel’s field trip. (GothamSchools, Times, NY1, Post, DN, WSJ)
• News of fiscal wrongdoing at Kennedy HS are part of a long history of trouble there. (Riverdale Press)
• The former principal of IS 141 in Queens says he was forced out on false charges. (Queens Gazette)
• Chancellor Klein and his Ed Equality Project co-chairs oppose potential Race to the Top cuts. (WSJ)
• Parents at PS 41 created a community service program for their children. (The Villager)
• Civil rights groups quit working with Boston schools over community engagement efforts. (Boston Globe)
• Changes to teacher evaluation laws mean teachers in many states will face a new reality this year. (NPR)

• A veteran education reporter is now on Baltimore’s school board. (Baltimore Sun via Russo)
• An Astoria principal who served in the rubber room feels mistreated. (Western Queens Gazette)
• Districts receiving school turnaround grants will have to involve parents. (EdWeek)
• In the ed tech battle, the curmudgeons are winning — at least the media vote. (Learning First)
• Arthur Levine, who grew up in the South Bronx, has a book about kids there now. (NPR)
• Bill Gates got boo’d at the AFT convention, but also a lot of cheers. (YouTube)
• Running for reelection, Maryland’s governor offers to cover the cost of AP tests. (EdWeek)
• Creativity scores are declining as IQ scores increase. (Newsweek via Joanne Jacobs)

Afraid of another lawsuit from the teachers union, city officials have decided to force fewer new schools to share space this year.

Originally, the Department of Education planned to begin closing 19 schools next September and open 16 schools — most of them brand new — in their buildings. But that plan was put on hold when the union successfully sued to stop the closures. With the court silent on whether new schools could still open, the city announced that it would proceed to open them.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said he was concerned that opening new schools while keeping the original schools in business would mean severe overcrowding in some buildings.

Now the two sides have reached an agreement that will change some of the planned colocations and, as part of the deal, the UFT has waived its right to sue over the colocations.

Under the agreement, five new schools that would have co-located with closing schools will open elsewhere, including one in the union’s office. The deal also gives the saved schools more support and possibly more staff, but not more money. (more…)

Nicole Suriel and her classmates did not have permission slips for the field trip that ended in the 12-year-old student’s death, according to a report released today by the school system’s investigator.

UPDATE: Responding to the report’s findings, the city is firing Erin Bailey, the first-year teacher who led the field trip. It will also seek to put the school’s principal, Jose Maldonado-Rivera, on a two-year probation. The school’s assistant principal, Andrew Stillman, is being demoted to a tenured teacher position.

Suriel’s drowning is also prompting the city to review and possibly change its regulations on field trips, said Department of Education spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz.

Investigators compiled a detailed narrative of the June 22 field trip to an unpatrolled Long Island beach taken by Suriel’s sixth grade class at the Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering. They interviewed the school’s principal, as well as the assistant principal, local government and law enforcement officials, eight students on the trip and a college intern who chaperoned. The full report is below. (more…)

It’s been a busy week for Bill Gates. While the NEA featured brilliant Diane Ravitch as its most prominent guest, AFT President Randi Weingarten and company chose Gates, who’s done many remarkable things.

I’m not an education expert like Gates, so I’ll comment only on a TED talk he gave last year that’s available online. My experience is limited to teaching 25 years in New York City. Still, several of Gates’ comments did not sit well with me.

How does that [KIPP charter school] compare to a normal school? Well, in a normal school teachers aren’t told how good they are. The data isn’t gathered. In the teacher’s contract, it will limit the number of times the principal can come into the classroom — sometimes to once per year. And they need advanced notice to do that.

My principal can and does visit my classroom whenever he golly goshdarn feels like it. He offers no advanced notice, and walks around the building visiting my colleagues in exactly the same fashion. Gates’s version of what happens in a “normal school” sounds more like a crass stereotype than any contract I’ve ever heard of. (more…)

• A forthcoming report details low standards on state tests. (Post, NY1, S.I. Advance)
• Some are skeptical about the state’s will to raise standards. (GothamSchools)
• Thieves stole laptop computers from PS 107 for the second time in a month. (Brooklyn Paper)
• City teachers are among many getting kudos from former students on Facebook. (Times)
• In D.C., scores are down at elementary schools but up at middle and high schools. (Washington Post)