GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• In a twist, parents at PS 42 in the Rockaways urge the city to shut their school down. (Daily News)
• A fight with a principal led a Haitian immigrant mom in Queens to faint, have a panic attack. (NY1)
• An East Harlem charter school with no Jewish students held classes on Rosh Hashanah. (DNAInfo)
• Fifty people braved the tornado to discuss the city’s plans for overhauling special ed. (Insideschools)
• The family of Nicole Suriel, who drowned on a school trip, will sue the city for $20M. (Daily News)
• Rhee says her reform efforts lost Fenty his election. Her regret? Poor P.R. work. (Ed Week)
• Handicapping the likely options, Bill Turque concludes Rhee will probably leave. (Washington Post)
• A report that Rhee’s staff members are already getting poached by “talent hawks.” (Rick Hess)
• Educating women improves a country’s child mortality more than economic growth. (Ed Week)
• An argument that the current education debate suffers from a “teacher quarantine.” (Tween Teacher)
• The Gates Foundation should invest in evening the education PhD gap. (Inside Higher Ed)
• The NYT Mag’s education issue looks at educational technology, and I look at cell phones. (NYT)

The value-added reports meant to measure city teachers’ effectiveness have wide margins of error and give judgments that fluctuate — sometimes wildly — from one year to the next, a new analysis finds.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has instructed principals to use the Teacher Data Reports as one way to decide which teachers should receive tenure. Teachers who teach English or math to students in grades three through eight receive the reports.

The NYU economist Sean Corcoran found that 31 percent of English teachers who ranked in the bottom quintile of teachers in 2007 had jumped to one of the top two quintile by 2008. About 23 percent of math teachers made the same jump.

There was an overall correlation between how a teacher scored from one year to the next, and for some teachers, the measurement was more stable. Of the math teachers who ranked in the top quintile in 2007, 40 percent retained that crown in 2008. (more…)

One Bronx public school parent wants to make an unusual barter with Mayor Bloomberg.

If the city brings back after-school programs for her four children in the Bronx, Evelyn Rivera will stop smoking, she told reporters from AM New York today.

“Stress brings the cigarettes back every time: Reduce the stress of New Yorkers and they’ll stop,” she said.

Principals’ budgets are being cut by 4 percent this year to save the city $313 million. Since 2007, schools have seen a total cut of 12 percent and many schools said goodbye to their after-school programs years ago.

This week I came to a realization that I’ve been lying about my school year. My writing hasn’t been total fabrications, but a series of lies of omission. I’ve been trying to craft a narrative of positivity and a fresh start. Who is this narrative for? Myself most of all.

The truth is, I’m feeling exhausted, burnt out and discouraged. And I haven’t yet finished my first full week of teaching.

What is going wrong? What is so different from the past two school years which began with (relative) calm and optimism? Why does this year feel chaotic and overwhelming?

On a practical level, it’s the number of bodies in my room. Last year I had a ridiculously small roster of 19 students. While my classroom was still full of challenges including non-readers and students without basic number sense, the small class size made most management much easier. This year, with 29 students, including three who are new to the country and two other non-English speakers … not so easy anymore.

Beyond the logistics of a class that’s almost double the size of last year, I just don’t feel psychologically ready. (more…)

Add a school day to the list of casualties wrought by the powerful storm that swept through parts of Brooklyn and Queens last night.

John Bowne High School in Flushing is too severely damaged to open today, the city announced in the middle of the night. Its 3,100 students will return to classes on Monday, according to an alert posted on the school’s website.

Previously, Mayor Bloomberg had said he thought all schools would open normally today. “There have been reports of damage to school buildings,” he said around 9:30 p.m. while surveying damage at Terrace on the Park, a catering hall about a mile from John Bowne. “We do expect all schools to be open tomorrow, but we’ll just — as the night goes on, we’ll make sure that everything is safe.”

Was your school damaged? Tell us about how the storm affected your school day.

Here’s the city’s 3 a.m. email announcing John Bowne’s closure: (more…)

• The state has relaxed tutoring requirements for students who fail state tests. (Daily News)
• Critics of city education policies protested outside the Department of Education. (WSJ, WNYC)
• Charter school advocates aren’t giving up after Tuesday’s electoral defeats. (NY1)
• A $20 million gift from Goldman Sachs will help Harlem Children’s Zone open a new school. (AP)
• Signs are strong that Michelle Rhee will lose her job under D.C.’s new mayor. (Washington Post)
• The Times says D.C.’s new mayor should maintain Rhee’s reforms, if not her.
• “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” which opens next week, doesn’t have fans in teachers unions. (Post)

• Our survey will close tomorrow; fill it out and get a chance to win $100. (GS)
• A Goldman Sachs fund is giving Harlem Children’s Zone $20 million. (CityRoom)
• From the new Freakonomics movie: Paying kids for better grades. (YouTube)
• A new way to donate to schools reverses traditional donor relations. (Good)
• An educator argues that special education inclusion has “backfired.” (Hechinger)
• The AFT spent roughly $1 million to help unseat D.C. Mayor Fenty. (Politico)
• Rhee’s next steps: go on her honeymoon, then meet with the new mayor. (Newsweek)
• Community colleges across the country struggle to meet student demand. (Hechinger)
• The NYT Mag dives deep inside Quest to Learn, the city’s video game school. (NYT)
• Arne Duncan’s old boss is not too fond of Duncan’s Race to the Top. (Sun-Times)

To comply with federal rules meant to turn struggling schools around, the city is playing a game of musical chairs — or, rather, musical principals.

Under the rules, the 11 struggling schools the city wants to “transform” can’t get federal dollars unless the city replaces their current principals with a new leader. But in one case, school officials have removed the principal from one struggling school — and made her the new leader at another.

Geraldine Maione will move from being principal at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, one of the 11 transformation schools, to being principal at William Grady, another of the 11.

The shuffling of principals highlights the compromise approach that the city is taking with the 11 schools it selected for “transformation.” The transformation model is the least severe of the four federal school turnaround strategies because it does not require officials to remove any teachers. It does, however, require that the principal be replaced.

But officials have wanted to keep some of the 11 principals, citing improvements their schools have made on their watch. (more…)

As Lehman students walked to school this morning, many noted that they'd likely spend the day waiting for class schedules.

Scheduling snafus are an annual rite at city schools during the first week back. But those problems have been magnified at Herbert Lehman High School, where computer glitches and failed planning have left students sitting in the auditorium rather than in class.

Teachers and students said that since school began last Wednesday, hundreds of students haven’t known where to go or what classes to attend. Instead, many of the school’s 4,000 students have been told to sit in the auditorium while guidance counselors sort out the problem. Many have simply gone home.

Most schools work on students’ schedules over the summer and make adjustments the first week back when a glut of new students arrive on their doorsteps. But teachers said Lehman administrators hadn’t done this.

“The principal is blaming some computers going down, but in your average decent school this is addressed over the summer. The students deserve an education from day one,” said a Lehman teacher. “It’s never been this bad.”

On her way into the building this morning, Stephanie Caceres, 16, said she expected another day of waiting to get a class schedule.

“I haven’t been to class since the first day,” she said. (more…)

While this new school year has felt overwhelming and exhausting in many ways, I am trying to focus on the ways in which I can capitalize on the fresh start I’ve been given. It’s one of the best features of teaching. There aren’t many jobs out there where you’re essentially allowed to press reset and try a myriad of different approaches to your work.

Sometimes it can be something as simple as a new procedure for sharpening pencils or checking homework. You’d be surprised how much peace of mind rests on these minutiae. But hopefully, when September comes around, you can find something really special to try out for the first time to change the landscape of the school year. In a school community where standardized testing can weigh heavier and heavier over the course of the year, this is especially important.

One way I’ve tried to reinvigorate my practice and the outlook for my school year is by planning for numerous guest speakers and field trips. The guest speaker piece will be trickier to pull off (get in touch if you have knowledge or talents to share!), but I’m planning to hold myself accountable for field trips this year in an attempt to erase the “experiential gap” that’s often ignored in classrooms like my own.

In smaller ways I’m also trying to establish a positive tone for the school year. (more…)