GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Democrats for Education Reform spent $2m in local races this year, 10 times more than in 2008. (WSJ)
• Complaints about Shuang Wen Academy center on racism, illegal fees, and security issues. (Times)
• No one will face criminal charges over Nicole Suriel’s field-trip drowning. (Times, Post, NY1)
• A Brooklyn teenager was fatally struck by a car during her walk to school yesterday. (Post)
• The new requirement that schools classify students by race is actually 13 years old. (NY1)
• Most school district administrators in New Jersey are getting their salaries cut. (Post)
• A Queens school bus took four hours to bring children home yesterday. (NY1)
• A private program gives city teens skills for babysitting children with special needs. (Times)

• David Bloomfield parodies the education reform moment, from Arne Duncan on down. (HuffPo)
• Chancellor Klein went to Detroit this morning, and he also likes classical music. (Twitter)
• Some Brooklyn families don’t want to see a popular neighborhood school expand. (The Local)
• After running around all week, city educators will run the marathon Saturday, too. (INGNYCMarathon)
• Andy Rotherham says bad charter schools should be closed, not fixed. (Eduwonk)
• A call for collaboration between younger and older teachers. (Edwize)
• Is the real reason schools need a Superman their post-Sputnik math curriculum? (HuffPo)
• City DOE chief spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz attacks Diane Ravitch — again. (HuffPo)

The website InsideSchools, which for years has provided independent information about schools for parents and teachers, has found a new home at The New School.

Founded in 2002 by Pamela Wheaton and Clara Hemphill, the site and its staff will be based out of the Center for New York City Affairs at the university, where Hemphill currently works. And as part of the move, the co-founders are retooling the site — updating its look and writing reviews that cater to parents who don’t have perfect English.

“The idea is that we want to make the site more accessible to people who don’t read very well and who might not speak English, so we’re going to try to have videos and pictures and try to have less text,” said Hemphill, the site’s senior editor, in a phone interview today.

“Of the schools the chancellor has opened, most of them are really geared for at-risk kids, so we wanted to make it easier for kids who have kind of limited reading levels to navigate,” she said. (more…)

The city is renaming its office that oversees parent groups, partly in response to concern that Spanish-speaking parents are tripping over its title.

The Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy (OFEA) is now the Office of Family Information and Action (OFIA). Its role of overseeing communication with parents and parent groups is staying the same.

A spokesman for the DOE said one of the reasons for the change is that Spanish-speaking parents were confused by it. Parents were reading the acronym OFEA and getting caught on the last three letters which, strung together in Spanish, are “fea,” meaning ugly. Parent coordinators and district family advocates thought the name was distracting parents, the spokesman said.

A second reason for the new name is policy-driven. The office and its new director Ojeda Hall want to focus on giving information to parents rather than organizing them. (more…)

• Two of the schools the city is considering closing opened in the last three years. (Post)
• A charter school administrator accused of abuse in California has been accused again here. (Post)
• Some say the teachers union has been weakened by attacks against it; others aren’t sure. (Daily News)
• The city is selling its Second Avenue Subway project by appealing to schoolchildren. (Times)
• A gourmet chef serves up lunch at PS 67 in the Bronx. (Bronx Ink)
• Education Secretary Arne Duncan will visit British schools this week. (Telegraph)