GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Mara Lewin-Tankel, surrounded by her students at the Urban Assembly Institute of Math and Science for Young Women, last year when the students were featured on Good Morning America.

Last summer, the director of development and partnerships at the Urban Assembly Institute of Math & Science for Young Women, Mara Lewin-Tankel, wanted to bring her school into the social networking age. She set up Facebook and Twitter accounts. And when she looked for stories about the city schools to share, she found GothamSchools.

Since then, Lewin-Tankel has checked the site almost daily. (She also was kind enough to fill out our reader survey, and lucky enough to win the gift certificate we dangled as an incentive.)

She’s a pretty typical GothamSchools reader in lots of ways. She works in a school, loves the morning headline round-up, and has even already passed a posting she saw on our new jobs board along to a friend.

And, like most of those who filled out the reader survey, she has some helpful tips about what we could be doing better. Her advice is to spend more time comparing policies in practices in New York City to what other school districts are doing around the country. (more…)

What’s Chancellor Joel Klein’s message about Michelle Rhee’s resignation? He told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell yesterday that even though D.C. residents voted out their mayor and their schools superintendent resigned, the city still wants “committed, aggressive reform.”

“I think the message is the following, and I think the D.C. community is sending that message to Mayor [Vincent] Gray, which is: We want to continue on this path,” he said.

“We may want some changes in this or that, and I think the best thing he can do is establish himself as a political independent — someone who’s willing not to listen to all the moneyed interests, but actually listen to the people, and ultimately the kids in D.C. — is to go forward with a really strong committed aggressive reform. That’s what the city needs, everybody knows it.”

The chancellor also praised D.C.’s interim superintendent, Kaya Henderson, and called on her to continue Rhee’s policies of closing poor-performing schools and firing incompetent teachers.

Last Friday I went to see “Waiting for ‘Superman’,” the movie that showcases America’s broken educational system. The movie takes its title from a story told by one of the protagonists, Geoffrey Canada. Canada, the founder of Harlem’s Children Zone, explains that when he was growing up, he used to love comic books. He was so immersed in the world of comics, he truly believed that one day Superman would come and rescue everyone from the ghetto. The sad realization that Superman’s omnipotence was fictitious and nobody was coming to save the day sparked Canada’s journey to become his own real life Superman.

Canada’s story resonated with me in a powerful way. When I was a kid I was also infatuated with comic books. While I didn’t make-believe that superheros would come to rescue me (I was privileged enough to never need rescuing), I did imagine what it would be like to be a superhero. Eventually, like Canada, I outgrew my superhero fantasies too. But, also like Canada, I was drawn to education as a way to act out my dreams of saving the world.

The teacher-superhero parallel isn’t solely my own invention. (more…)

Let’s be honest, when people talk about the so-called “crisis in American education,” as most recently brought to the public eye through Education Nation, what people are really talking about is a crisis in urban education. The majority of Americans live in the suburbs, and most are quite content with the education their children receive. Despite all its problems, the one thing I will grant “Waiting for ‘Superman’” without reservation is that it challenges the notion that suburban schools serve all of their students well. So while Geoffrey Canada waits for Superman to save our cities, we need a “Commissioner Gordon” to light up the bat signal over the suburbs, because if there is a crisis in education, it extends to all public schools that fail to be the equalizing mechanism democracy requires.

I started my career teaching in one of Washington, D.C.,’s more privileged suburbs. I took a job there because I was excited by the opportunity to teach a school with a truly diverse population both in terms of race and class. About a third of my students were living in McMansions, and a third lived in working-class apartments. A third of my students had parents in active military service. The school was also split fairly evenly among white, black, and Latino students, with a number of South and Southeastern Asian students as well. Having student-taught in both urban and suburban parts of Rhode Island, I thought this D.C.-area school would be a good place to start my career.

What I found there should be the starting point of a national crisis. (more…)

• Emma Bloomberg asked the city to give two charters sole use of a park for part of the day. (Daily News)
• The city’s efforts to close struggling schools may be intensifying crowding in other schools. (Daily News)
• DeWitt Clinton’s principal declared a state of emergency after gang violence erupted. (Riverdale Press)
• A new school in Battery Park City is showcasing its green building practices. (NY1)
• Observers say Michelle Rhee’s departure is unlikely to disrupt her reform agenda in D.C. (Times)
• Rhee’s successor, Kaya Henderson, shares her goals, but may be less divisive. (Washington Post)
• Rhee said she will take some time off, then look for another job in education. (Wall Street Journal)
• The New York Post thinks that Chancellor Joel Klein should offer Rhee a job in New York.
• A Bed-Stuy middle school, roiled by leadership changes, still has no textbooks. (Daily News)
• A new after-school program in Brooklyn wants to teach kids to be web-savvy. (Daily News)
• N.J. charters will now have access to $30 mil. in low-interest bonds for school construction. (Star-Ledger)
• A lawsuit settlement could drastically change the way L.A. teachers are judged and laid off. (L.A. Times)
• The Boston teachers union says an op-ed its superintendent signed was teacher-bashing. (Globe)

Michelle Rhee edition:

• Michelle Rhee resigned with a Tweet and a new dot-org website. (Twitter, MichelleRhee.org)
• A digital firm with Obama ties made the site. Bloomberg-Rhee 2012, anyone? (NBC Washington, Politico)
• Parents’ reviews of Michelle Rhee’s decision to exit, plus more great WashPost coverage. (WashPost)
• Randi Weingarten tells a reporter that Rhee’s failing was “her disdain for relationships.” (Marc Ambinder)
• Rhee’s interim replacement is her deputy and ed-reform soulmate Kaya Henderson. (WashPost)
• A source tells me Henderson’s name is being pitched for the top job in Newark, too. (No link)

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world:

• The Regents might extend a ban on extra tutoring for students who fail state exams. (Daily News)
• A school eliminated work rules only after improving teacher-management relations. (GS Community)
• Projections underestimate how many jobs will require a college degree. (Quick and the Ed)
• The NEA is creating “heart burn” by partnering with a for-profit college. (Mike Antonucci)
• In a spoof, “Aunty Broad” says reformers “should be cloned, they are so smart.” (NYPSP)
• Davis Guggenheim says he belongs to a union and “really believes” in unions. (AV Club)
• Brooklyn kids are learning to “bike like a driver.” (WNYC)

An excerpt from our report summarizing the results of our reader survey.

Most of you, dear readers, don’t fall neatly into either the Joel Klein or the Diane Ravitch camps on education, and even more of you don’t find GothamSchools ideological. (Phew! Not being ideological is our goal.)

These are among the findings of our first-ever nonscientific reader survey. You can read our full breakdown in this report.

Our aim is to use the survey findings as fuel for self-improvement. For instance, there seems to be something going on with the comments section.

On one hand, almost 30 percent of responders described the comments section as “very useful,” and a strong 41 percent of respondents reported commenting “every so often.” Among the silent readers, a few reported keeping quiet despite using the comments to shape an opinion. ”I visit Gotham to learn from others,” one wrote.

But most of the responders who didn’t comment said it was because of the tone of the comments that are posted. These people peppered their feedback with words like “vitriol” and “offensive.” “I love Gotham Schools but the commenters are nasty!” one wrote. “I’d never want to enter into that fray!”

A few more responses along those lines:

I find the comments are generally people with overly opinionated, yet unsubstantiated views that they want desperately to share but have nobody willing to listen.

I stopped. The comment section has deteriorated from thoughtful commentary to an arena of hysterics, mudslinging, and proselytizing. It degraded from NYT comments to Daily News comments.

Not a good forum for productive conversation–talking at people, not with them (more…)

Hi Stacey,

In your letter to me, you ended by writing “… I would love to hear how unions and charter schools co-exist in Denver.”

While I don’t pretend to be an expert on the teacher union in Denver, I do have some experience on the issue. (Over the past couple years, I worked for Denver Public Schools in its New Schools Office  — now the Office of School Reform and Innovation — in various capacities including as executive director.) Long story short, out of the 30 or so charter schools in Denver, I am not sure any (maybe one) has a union presence. In fact, in Denver it is not obligatory that teachers in traditional public schools join the union, so in many schools there is quite a mix of teachers that are in the union and those that are not.

This being said, I think there are some really interesting things going on with collective bargaining agreements, and in some real ways there is a blurring of the lines between charter schools and traditional public schools. What has made this possible is a law that came on the books shortly before I got to Denver called the Innovation Schools Act of 2008. Here’s how the act describes itself:

The Innovation Schools Act is intended to improve student outcomes by supporting greater school autonomy and flexibility in academic and operational decision-making. The Act provides a means for schools and districts to gain waivers from state laws and collective bargaining agreements.

The Act allows a public school or group of public schools to submit an innovation plan to its school district board of education to implement innovations that result in improved student outcomes. Once approved, school district boards of education must submit the innovation plans and waiver requests to the Colorado State Board of Education for ratification.

(more…)

Philissa Cramer and Benjamin Resnick were married Sunday at the Inn at Bingham School in Chapel Hill, N.C. Rabbi Andy Bachman of the Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, New York, performed the ceremony.

The inn’s grounds were once the site of a school that prepared rural boys for entrance to the state university. The inn was the headmaster’s home.

The bride, 27, helped found GothamSchools in 2008 and previously launched Insideschools’ first news blog. She graduated from Brown University where, wedding guests attest, her greatest indiscretion was leaving her oatmeal bowl in the sink for a full day before washing it. She was an editor of the Brown Daily Herald, the university’s student newspaper. (more…)

• D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee will announce her plans to resign today. (Washington Post)
• Rhee refused to step down, Gray wouldn’t fire her, so they’re jointly announcing her leaving. (NY Times)
• Readers respond to Rhee and Klein’s “manifesto” on how to fix schools. (Washington Post)
• Anonymous threats to the Shuang Wen School have some parents removing their children. (NY1)
• Community groups working rent-free in schools now have to pay for expensive permits. (Daily News)
• Geoffrey Canada defends Harlem Children’s Zone schools and their spending model. (Daily News)
• As NJ moves closer to mayoral control, a study says it does not work. (Bloomberg News)
• LA’s schools superintendent threatened to quit if the board voted down spending cuts. (LA Times)
• A Muslim student’s family is accusing public school teachers of ignoring bullying. (Daily News)
• The Post has three students (one private, two public) review their school lunches. (NY Post)