GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The number of schools the city is considering for closure — already a record-high 47 — will likely increase after today’s public release of progress report scores.

GothamSchools has identified a total of 9 schools that could be added to the city’s watch-list for possible closure based on today’s scores. The city flags schools if they receive three consecutive C grades or a single D or F.

Though these schools meet the city’s criteria for closure based on test scores, they have not been officially added to the list of schools the city might shutter. City officials said they will announce their plans for these schools at the end of this month or early next month. That’s the same time the city will announce its plans for the high schools already identified for the watch list.

Not all of the schools that received low grades today will end up flagged for possible closure. City officials have said they will not consider schools that post graduation rates higher than the citywide average. The city also spares schools like Cypress Hills Collegiate Preparatory School that are receiving progress reports for the first time.

City officials also strike from the list schools which receive the highest rating on the city’s qualitative review, despite their low report card grades. So a school like Banana Kelly High School, which got a D today but which the city’s reviewers rated “well developed” on last year’s review, will likely be dropped from consideration. (more…)

Chancellor Joel Klein said the city would consider schools' new grades before deciding which ones to close.

For a few high schools, the grades they got on this year’s progress reports could make the difference between life and death.

Though most schools’ grades didn’t change dramatically from last year, several schools the city tried to close last year saw improvement this year while others that had once been good schools have fallen to the bottom.

Of the 19 schools the city unsuccessfully tried to close for poor performance last year, two schools had their grades jump multiple rungs. W.H. Maxwell Career and Technical Education High School and the Choir Academy of Harlem, both of which got D’s last year, and got B’s this time.

Chancellor Joel Klein said the Department of Education would take the new, higher grades into consideration when deciding whether to try and close the schools it had once deemed “failures” a second time.

“We put great weight on the grades,” he said at a press conference this morning at Manhattan Bridges High School. “We announced those schools based on the information we had at the time.” (more…)

Yesterday when I was on my way out of my polling place, a very well-off public school on the Upper East Side, I stopped to look at a display of the school’s employees. There was an array of smiling photos, labeled with names and positions. Among the familiar roles of teachers, SETSS (special education teacher support services) providers, and counselors, I saw a position unfamiliar to most teachers in the Bronx and similar communities: Assistant Teacher.

Assistant Teacher? You mean, like someone to help the teacher provide extra support and attention to the students in their classroom? But why would any effective teacher who has mastered differentiation need someone else to help them with their students? It’s almost like this school thinks more individual attention is something valuable for their students. Weird.

Stacey Gauthier, a co-principal of Renaissance Charter High School, and Marc Waxman, a principal of a charter school in Denver, are corresponding about school policy. Read their entire exchange.

Dear Marc,

You asked whether paying more to teachers is one possible long-term solution to improving teacher quality. Paying more money to teachers is not enough by itself, but it can be one part of an overall school-wide improvement plan that would have a positive impact on teacher effectiveness. The federal Teacher Incentive Fund is a program that supports efforts to develop and implement performance-based compensation systems so that teachers and administrators are rewarded financially for increases in student achievement.

A first-year teacher in NYC with a master’s degree is paid around $50,000 and currently has a very competitive health and pension benefits’ package. I added the word currently because many of us fear that these benefits are threatened as costs become unmanageable. We continue to see these packages being diminished piece by piece. I know we are in a recession and this gives us adequate cause to tackle our spending challenges, but this has not stopped us from bailing out failing companies or ensuring that Wall Street gets its bonuses. I understand the need to do both of these things and support the notion of the trickle-down effect. But, as you mentioned, education is an investment in our society that serves a purpose greater than the individual successes achieved. I find it ironic that at the same time we are pushing for massive educational reforms we seem to be attacking some of the very benefits that attract people into the profession and make them want to stay.

I am not a fan of getting short-term dynamic teachers into the system who will do their three-year stint and leave. Imagine this type of setup in medicine, law or scientific research?  I am a fan of getting dynamic, highly qualified individuals into teaching who consider their profession as a calling, a mission or in the words of Joseph Campbell — a heroic journey. (more…)

For the second year in a row, the city has awarded fewer top progress report grades to high schools.

Nearly 70 percent of high schools received A’s or B’s on this year’s reports, which are being released today, down from about 75 percent last year and 83 percent in 2008.

And more schools will have to endure a year of having the letter “F” branded on their report cards. Last year, the city gave only one F, but this year nine schools got that grade, and another 23 received D’s. Schools that receive a grade of F or D, or get three C’s in a row, are at risk for closure. The city has indicated that it might try to close more schools this year than in past years.

This year’s high school grades were more stable than those for elementary and middle schools, which were released last month. Elementary and middle school reports are based almost entire on state reading and math scores, and lower scores statewide caused grades to fall this year at about 70 percent of schools. (more…)

• The city cleared the former principal of Bayard Rustin HS of cheating, but questions remain. (Post)
• Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo’s proposed policies have not made him friends with unions. (Times)
• Public school baseball teams will limit how many pitches pitchers can throw each game. (Times, Post)
• SUNY has put out a want ad for new operators to take over a failing charter school. (GothamSchools)
• A British study suggested some benefits to publishing school rankings. (Daily Mail)

• EdWeek will be posting schools-focused election updates all night. Follow them here.
• If Dems lose a lot of seats tonight, how will that affect major education initiatives? (Eduflack)
• Mike Petrilli says more Republicans will means less money and less federal reform. (Flypaper)
• Races in CT and CO are among those worth watching for education reasons. (Politics K-12)
• A voter discovered “wacky hand-lettering” in the public school where he voted today. (Twitter)
• One mother’s charter school tour in “Waiting for Superman” was filmed after her son lost the lottery. (NYT)
• A teacher says the city isn’t following the timeline it set in its new rubber room agreement. (Chaz)
• A project meant to hold students’ attention ends with a third of them failing. (GothamSchools)
• Suspensions are the go-to response, but they don’t seem to do students any good. (NYC Educator)
• The idea of community schools has become popular, but in Baltimore they haven’t worked. (CityPaper)
• A look at who might be on the union-side of D.C.’s next year in school reform. (EdWeek)

For the first time, SUNY officials are looking to reinvent a struggling charter school with new leadership rather than shutting it down and sending its students elsewhere.

Rather than closing Harlem Day Charter School for its low test scores, the SUNY Charter School Institute is trying to find a new operator to replace the school’s board, administration and staff.

“The key element here is that really the only thing that would remain would be students,” said Jonas Chartock, the institute’s executive director. The idea is that the school’s 240 students would experience less disruption if their school was restructured rather than closed.

The call for applications that SUNY released today does not explicitly name Harlem Day. But that school’s charter is up for renewal this year and its enrollment numbers match those described in SUNY’s document. Harlem Day’s progress report grade this year ranked the school as the 11th poorest-performing elementary or middle school in the city.

Chartock said that when the board realized that its low test scores made its chances for renewal slim, board members said they would rescind their renewal application if SUNY was able to find another board to take over the school.

“I do think that’s an example that other boards can learn from,” Chartock said. (more…)

Collin Lawrence is a former New York City teacher who is recounting his four years working at a Brooklyn high school. Read Collin’s previous posts.

Early on, I lacked the experience to demand attention from my students. I taught decent lessons about the Renaissance and Reformation, but the majority of my students joked around, played on their cell phones or iPods, and freely walked in and out of the classroom. I quickly fell into the mentality of “I’ll just teach the ones that want to learn.” Still, I believed that students would take my classes more seriously if only they faced disciplinary consequence for not doing so.

So I reached out. My principal, an imposing and charismatic man, had offered to “push-in” to my classes and I took him up on the offer. I hoped his presence would help me re-establish a stern tone, particularly at the beginning of classes. However, he bristled at the idea of playing the disciplinarian and instead proposed a radical change of course.

“Don’t worry about the Regents exam,” he told me in his office one day after school. Students were disengaged, he suggested, because I was too focused on delivering content that was not relevant to them. Why not let the students pick their own content, he asked, and focus instead on teaching skills? I was willing to try anything by this point, and so we discussed a plan together.

Each student would identify a research question of personal interest. This question would serve as a basis for a long-term research project. In the mind of my principal, the original question would lead to additional questions, leading the students down several paths of intellectual discovery. Excited about the possibilities, he even ordered over $300 worth of resources for my classroom (including books by Howard Zinn to Noam Chomsky) and arranged for me to have computers each day. (more…)

Picture via NYC Board of Elections

As if you could forget amid all the noise about sanity and fear, today is election day. And while education hasn’t been at the forefront of any of this year’s big races, the issue is never too far from many voters’ — and candidates’ — minds.

We’ve compiled a short guide to where education fits into the biggest statewide races, as well as a few smaller races where candidates’ stances on education may play a key role.

Governor: Cuomo v. Paladino

From the beginning of his campaign, Cuomo has framed himself as a supporter of President Obama’s education policies and as a would-be governor willing to fight with unions. Though he hasn’t said exactly what he would do in office, he has aligned himself with groups like Democrats for Education Reform, which support increasing the number of charter schools, ending seniority-based layoffs, and changes to teachers’ pensions.

Paladino’s views on education are considerably more radical. According to his website, he supports firing the entire Board of Regents, repealing the law that governs how teachers are fired, and instituting school vouchers. Though he wants to cut the state’s budget by 20 percent, he told reporters that he would not cut education funding. (more…)