GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• High school crowding is down, but half of students still go to overcrowded schools. (Post, Daily News)
• The emergency power Joel Klein claimed this week was given by last year’s mayoral control law. (Times)
• A city school bus driver who also takes food to the homeless won a federal medal of honor. (AP)
• Denver’s schools are deep in debt from a complicated financial deal meant to bail them out. (Times)
• Early childhood education advocates say they were shut out of innovation fund winners. (Times)

• Filmmakers challenging the “achievement culture” have a video op-ed. (NY Times)
• Teach For America and KIPP won big in the i3 contest; so did School of One. (Times)
• The Senate passed a $10 billion “edujobs” bill today to stave off layoffs. (EdWeek)
• One reaction: “My debt grows to protect union dues.” (Ed is Watching)
• Distributing this money in NY might require a legislative session. (NYSSBA)
• Report: Half of high schoolers attended crowded schools in 2008-2009. (IBO: pdf)
• Kudos to Rick Hess for the phrase “over-caffeinated value-added enthusiasts.” (Dorn)
• Who is the “blame-the-teacher crowd”? Tim Daly thinks it’s a mirage. (Eduwonk)
• Meanwhile Claus thinks veteran teachers’ job angst is understandable. (Learning First)
• Aaron Pallas is still skeptical that D.C.’s teacher evaluation does what it claims. (Hechinger)

Since I’m basically a filmmaker now, I have to support my own. A two-man team of smart young filmmakers is looking for teachers to tell their stories.

They write:

What kind of story?  Stories like that big time success that deep down you’ve been burning to brag about.   Or, just as importantly, a failure – big or small – that you’ve had a chance to get your head around a little and understand what might prevent it in the future.  Or finally, unexpected ways you learned how to be a better teacher.

I’ve already talked to them for the film, which will be titled “Teacher, Teacher,” and found them sharp and knowledgeable of the issues.

Here’s the full info on how you can get involved: (more…)

Today in Williamsburg, I ran into two high school seniors on their way back from summer school. The students — Miguel, 18, and Edward, 20 — both carried cell phones.

I asked them to explain how they got their phones into Automotive High School, which has lines of security guards and metal detectors at the entrance. Like all city schools, Automotive abides by Chancellor Joel Klein’s cell phone ban.

Here is what they told me.

• Torn over its lack of racial diversity, Hunter College HS lost its third principal in five years. (Times)
• The city will expand a charter school against the state’s instructions. (GothamsSchools, Daily News)
• The Obama administration announced 49 presumptive recipients of special “innovation” funds. (AP)
• The city will get money to expand some programs but not to open 150 new small schools. (Post)
• The aid package the Senate passed yesterday would let New York keep 7,100 teaching jobs. (WSJ)
• Detroit is reassigning half the teachers at a quarter of its schools. (Detroit News)
• Only 76 of the 241 teachers Michelle Rhee fired were rated as “ineffective.” (Washington Post)

• The Senate cleared the way for passage of the $10 billion “edujobs” bill. (Politics K-12)
• Nancy Pelosi says she’ll call the House back next week to vote on the measure. (Politics K-12)
• Here’s a timeline of edujobs’ roller-coaster ride through Congress. (Ed Money Watch)
• The USDOE accidentally released innovation fund winners a day early. (Politics K-12)
• New York City’s DOE, School of One, TFA and The New Teacher Project are among the winners.
• How do two theories for and against charters hold up in a “school choice mecca”? Not well. (Eduwonk)
• Sol Stern: it’s “dismaying” that David Abrams remains New York’s testing director. (National Review)
• New York’s test score saga actually shows the value of meaningful tests, a blogger says. (New Republic)
• A principal says if schools try to create well-rounded students, proficiency will follow. (InsideSchools)
• Public Advocate Bill deBlasio should boost his role as spokesman for public school parents. (NYCPSPB)
• The Chicago teachers union sued the city to prevent layoffs. (Teacher Beat)
• Fox News’ headline for Chancellor Joel Klein’s appearance last week? “Eduation Matters.” (sic) (TruTV)

When test scores are released, individual schools often get lost in the big picture. To pull some out of the heap, I’ve created a way to look at each school’s results in a broad stroke: For every school in the city, I averaged the percentage of students who scored proficient across all the tested grade levels.

The following lists rank the highest- and lowest-scoring elementary schools in the city overall. It includes no charter schools and no screened schools. I did include schools with gifted and talented programs; they are denoted with a * next to their name.

Middle schools will come tomorrow. (And Kim Gittleson has done a similar analysis of charter schools; check it out.)

UPDATE: Three of these lists have been revised to add four schools missing from our lists due to an Excel error. The four added schools are:

• PS/IS 116 Wiliam C. Hughley, with 23.6% average proficiency on math, should have been on the math low-scoring list.
• P.S. 172 Beacon School of Excellence, with 99.6% average proficiency on math, should have been on the math high-scoring list.
• P.S. 172 Beacon School of Excellence, with 95.1% average proficiency on reading, should have been on that high-scoring list.
• P.S. 158 Bayard Taylor, with 90.5% average proficiency on reading, should have been on that high-scoring list.

Schools that would have been bumped off the lists because of these additions have been kept on.

(more…)

The city will forge ahead with a plan to give a Lower East Side charter school more space — even though the state ruled this week to throw that plan out.

The move takes advantage of an “emergency” provision in state law and will allow Girls Prep Charter School to expand into middle school grades in a building the charter currently shares with two district schools.

Earlier this week, State Education Commissioner David Steiner threw out the city’s plan. Steiner ruled that the city did not properly report the impact the charter school’s expansion would have on the students at one of the district schools, P.S. 94, which serves only students with autism. (You can read Steiner’s decision in full here.)

The law says that the chancellor can unilaterally change how a building is used when it is  “immediately necessary for the preservation of student health, safety or general welfare.” The change can be in effect for six months while the city goes through the full public approval process required under state law. (more…)

This post is part of a series for Leadership Day 2010 that aims to help school leaders who need help with technology use in their schools.

Next fall, I will start leading three new learning experiences: I will be teaching both sides of an aligned English/Global History course on world history and literatures to 11th grade students; I will also facilitate a Peer Learning Group at my school for fellow teachers on Technology and Teaching. All three experiences will share one common understanding:

Technology is a tool.

In the history class, we will looks at how technologies have altered how people live and interact with each other, from the new agriculture techniques of the Neolithic Revolution through the Internet. In English class, we hope to help students to learn how to use the various tools available to them to support the writing and revision process. In both these classes, we will help students learn how to find information, sort through it all to identify what is useful, assess the information for validity and bias, and finally use it in some meaningful form. With my peers, we will explore how technology can make them better teachers, and how they can use technology to better help their students learn. I’m really excited to use all three venues to help students and teachers improve their practice.

However, in honor of Leadership Day, I want to focus on the converse of the above understanding:

Technology is not an end.

(more…)

• The former JFK HS principal who took student money lost his new job in the suburbs. (Daily News)
• The married PS 257 principal and IS 318 guidance counselor gave kidneys to their two sons. (Fox News)
• The city won’t let Automotive HS’s football team use a nearby public field. (Brooklyn Paper)
• City students are preparing their submissions for next year’s middle school film festival. (WNYC)
• State officials rejected Girls Prep Charter School’s expansion plan. (GothamSchools, Post)
• So many HS basketball players are in summer school that the city can’t attend tournaments. (Daily News)
• Brooklyn parents aren’t putting much stock in the new, lower state test scores. (Brooklyn Paper)
• Arthur Levine says education could undo the damage done to his old neighborhood. (Daily News)
• The U.S. Senate is set to vote today on an aid package that would save teaching jobs. (Daily News)
• Australian principals want the government to give them power to fire teachers. (The Australian)
• Texas teachers are as white as they were decades ago, and experts want change. (AP)