GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Cathie Black report:

• If Black isn’t approved, no one else will want to be chancellor, Mayor Bloomberg said. (Post)
• Tension with Bloomberg might have caused Joel Klein to resign, insiders say. (Daily News)
• The Bloomberg administration’s lack of prepared supporters for Black was atypical. (City Hall)
• David Steiner has convened an advisory panel on Black’s waiver. (GothamSchools, WSJ, NY1)
• Several members of the panel have worked for Bloomberg in the past. (Times, Daily News)
• Black approved significant — and some say profligate — perks for Coke executives. (Daily News)
• If appointed, Black will start her tenure by cutting costs. (Post)
• The Daily News says Black should be appointed to keep mayoral control meaningful.
• Bob Herbert says Black’s appointment is a sign of what’s wrong with American education. (Times)

In other news:

• Chelsea HS is letting students retake failed classes online so they can graduate. (WNYC)
• At the New American Academy, teachers will stay with students for six years. (Daily News)
• The city filed a new memorandum in favor of releasing teachers’ value-added scores. (Post)
• Parents from five Brownstone Brooklyn schools protested against the scores’ release. (NY1)
• Like most places, Chicago hasn’t figured out how to make struggling schools better. (Times)
• The common characteristic in charter school research is flawed methodology. (WSJ)

• Commissioner David Steiner named the panel of experts that will screen Cathie Black. (GS, NYT)
• Unlike Black, all of the panelists have experience in education. (State of Politics)
• Bloomberg said he chose Black to stem “brain drain” within the Dept. of Ed. (Daily Politics)
• A second Millenium High School could open in Park Slope next year. (InsideSchools)
• Chancellor Klein’s lowest grades (two B’s) came from NYU’s School of Education. (NYT)
• The prize for the winner of last night’s “The Apprentice,” was a meeting with Cathie Black. (NYT)
• Rick Hess says he hasn’t been convinced that Black is right for the job. (EdWeek)
• Students and teachers at John Dewey High School are fighting threats of closure. (NYT)
• A former NYC teacher recounts some of the trauma his students endured. (GothamSchools)
• Should teachers be trained like doctors? The question is put to Twitter. (GOOD)
• A Queens bus driver (of a non-DOE bus) is accused of sexually abusing school children. (NYT)
• And NY Mag suggests a Harry Potter spin-off in which Hogwarts endures layoffs. (NY Mag)

Though they are at times each others’ harshest critics, Chancellor Joel Klein and noted education historian Diane Ravitch proved last week that they can occasionally share a laugh.

Last week, Klein e-mailed Ravitch asking for the “latest draft op-ed.” The message was an accident — presumably Klein meant to send it to the Department of Education’s press secretary, whose name is quite similar. “That’s what they get for getting a PR person named R-a-v-i-t-z,” Ravitch said when she forwarded us the e-mail.

A humorous exchange followed. Read from the bottom up:

—–Original Message—–
From: Diane Ravitch
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2010 6:11 PM
To: Klein Joel I.

May God be with you

I was afraid for a second that I mistyped “luck”

Whew (more…)

State Education Commissioner David Steiner has named the panel of education experts that will help him decide whether to allow magazine executive Cathie Black to become the next schools chancellor.

Without a background in education, Black needs a waiver from the state that will let her bypass the prerequisites: that she have a degree in education and several years of teaching behind her. Though the final decision rests with Steiner, the panel will play a role in reviewing the city’s case for why Black is qualified and making a recommendation.

Reviewing the list of panel members, New York University Professor Pedro Noguera said the commissioner had covered his bases.

“Steiner’s aware that this is very controversial,” Noguera said. “So if you think about it, instead of just him making the decision he can say, ‘Look, I got a group of very reputable people in education who agreed with me.’” (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.

On a Sunday night in December 2006, I received a call from one of my tenth-grade students asking for the phone number of our principal. Surprised by the request, I asked what was wrong. “My friend and his family were killed,” she responded.

I called the principal myself. “Do we have a student named K— C—?” I asked. “Yeah, boy hasn’t been to school in five days …” he started to say and then knew there was a problem. “How bad is it?” he asked. “Really bad,” I said, and proceeded to tell him what I knew. “Don’t call anyone,” he said, “let me handle it from here.”

The ninth-grade student was said to be friendly and mild-mannered. No one imagined the hell he must have been living in. The young man, his sister, and his mother had all been bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat in their home by his drugged-out uncle, who was also found dead of an apparent overdose.

This tragedy cannot be taken as representative of the lives most students live. But all of my students carried their own emotional baggage into the classroom, while also having different learning needs and levels of literacy. (more…)

• Mayor Bloomberg said he would unveil his long-promised teacher tenure proposal soon. (NY1)
• The city’s budget plan calls for cutting 10,000 jobs, 6,100 in schools. (Times, GothamSchools)
• The new chancellor will have to deal with the bad budget situation and, potentially, layoffs. (NY1)
• Nominee Cathie Black has layoff experience but is unfamiliar with most policy issues. (Times)
• David Steiner, the man who will decide Black’s fate, is an unconventional ed commissioner. (WNYC)
• The city rounded up a dozen leaders in academia to support Black’s candidacy. (Post)
• The Post says Steiner should expedite Black’s approval after Bloomberg’s scary budget news.
• Black’s book, “Basic Black,” have jumped 400 percent since Bloomberg picked her for chancellor. (Post)
• The city is now considering putting Eva Moskowitz’s charter school in the Brandeis building. (Daily News)
• The principal of PS 276 in Canarsie is being removed for manhandling students. (Daily News, NY1)
• Students at a Brooklyn high school are holding a mock trial — of Christopher Columbus. (Daily News)
• High school seniors’ reading and math scores improved unexpectedly last year. (Times)
• Bill Gates’ school budget solutions include changing teacher pay and making classes bigger. (Times)
• A state court said teachers unions cannot get contact information of charter school employees. (Post)
• A suburban principal broke into two students’ house when he thought they were playing hooky. (Post)

• A protegee of Cathie Black’s says, “She’s the closest thing to Superman that exists.” (NYT)
• Kathryn Wylde says Black will address people’s concerns about Joel Klein’s Tweed. (WNYC)
• Other media figures to put in important city jobs include Betty White for health commish! (CityRoom)
• A study finds that when teachers contact children’s parents regularly, children do better. (Goldstein)
• Listen to Pedro Noguera’s speech opening a Coalition of Essential Schools conference. (CMK)
• Video from this week’s PEP meeting includes protest language from Patrick Sullivan. (Ed Notes)
• Randi Weingarten urges “immediate steps” following disappointing NAEP reading scores. (Examiner)
• To encourage 12th graders to take NAEP seriously, schools dangle prom tickets. (Ed Week)
• A new Colorado policy makes it easier to transfer from a community college to 4-year. (Quick and the Ed)
• In a Brookings report, scholars in favor of teacher value-added models make their case. (Hechinger)
• Is differentiated instruction a magic bullet — or the solution to our biggest challenge? (Ed Next)
• Arne Duncan’s eat-your-broccoli, don’t-expect-another-stimulus message impressed. (Rick Hess)

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Chancellor Joel Klein declined to give any public advice to the mayor’s choice for his successor, publishing executive Cathie Black.  The outgoing chancellor said that while he has been meeting with Black each day, most of that time has been spent explaining what he has already done, not telling her what she should do in the future.

But a few minutes later, Klein told a group of local and national educators that he did have one piece of advice for the next chancellor: push his reforms even further.

As he often does, Klein invoked Sir Michael Barber, an education aide to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair known for his impatient approach to school reform. Barber’s instructions, Klein said, were to “be bold.” Klein said that he wished he had followed that advice more closely.

“We should have been bolder,” Klein said. For example, Klein said, he wishes that Department of Education officials had started their experiments with online and personalized instruction like the School of One and iZone programs earlier than they did. (more…)

Mayor Bloomberg called for over 6,100 teaching jobs to be cut from the city’s public schools next year in a new austerity budget released today.

The preliminary budget, which tries to close a massive gap left by the end of federal stimulus funding, will leave the Department of Education with a total deficit of $435 million. The department was spared a more brutal cut by the mayor’s decision to shift funding from other areas into the school system, partially filling the hole left by the loss of $853 million in stimulus funds and $350 million in budget cuts.

Folded into the city’s calculations is the assumption that another 1,500 teachers will be lost through the attrition schools experience every year. It also assumes that schools will bear the full brunt of the $435 million cut, though a spokeswoman for the DOE said officials have not decided what, if any, cuts will be made to the central administration.

“Right now, the City is facing unprecedented budget conditions and we recognize that everyone will have to make some very tough choices in the coming months,” said Department of Education Chief Operating Officer Sharon Greenberger in an email.

“While this is a preliminary estimate of what next year’s budget will look like, we are already identifying ways to reduce the financial impact on our schools and students,” she said. (more…)

Consequences are an essential component of accountability. Recent revelations of inflated state test scores require consequences, not just for those public officials responsible for false claims of math and reading proficiency but to make whole the students who for years were denied legally required help.

This case for reparations depends not only on elemental fairness and the oft-cited need for improved student outcomes but on mandated Supplemental Educational Services under Section 1116(e) of the No Child Left Behind Act and Academic Intervention Services required by New York State Education Commissioner’s Regulation §§ 100.1(g) and 100.2(ee). If children’s test scores had been properly determined, hundreds of thousands more students would have received extra help. It is insufficient to now say, in effect, “too bad.”

Students were denied their legal right to instructional services because of State policies that were known or should have been known to be deficient. Unfortunately, at least under No Child Left Behind, individuals do not generally have a right to sue the federal government, states, or school districts for noncompliance. But the federal government itself can sue the state, and the state’s attorney general can sue the State Education Department and districts to repair the harm. The state can also address the problem legislatively.

The recent movie “Waiting for ‘Superman’” argues that state governments and school districts constitute a “Blob” that cares more about adults’ concerns than children’s. In October, the State Board of Regents compounded its strategy of denial by voting to suspend its own requirement that districts provide remediation to students lacking academic proficiency. Once again, the State Education Blob undercut its own rhetoric about high standards leading to improved student performance by acting in a manner that subverts progress of our most vulnerable youth. When push comes to shove, the new education elite abandons its civil rights sound bites to reduce its tax bite.

There can be no clearer example of the Blob at work than denying instruction to needy students. The government is directly withholding instructional assistance needed to compensate students for past wrongs. Our children, our future, and our law demand that our leaders make good on their unfulfilled responsibilities to supplement the instruction of those students unfairly denied this entitlement.