• The state is asking foundations for $18 million to make sure it spends its RttT funds well. (WSJ)
• The state approved 15 new charter schools for New York City. (GothamSchools, Post)
• Data show that 3 of 4 CUNY community college freshmen need remedial help. (Daily News, Post)
• Juan Gonzalez: Most special ed tuition spending goes to families from wealthy areas. (Daily News)
• Klein attended his final Panel for Educational Policy meeting last night. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• Conditions at Central Falls High School, where all the teachers were nearly fired, have worsened. (NPR)
• A gunman opened fire at a Florida school board meeting, then killed himself. (AP)

• PBS and School of One, via Gates, will produce a digital math content library. (TV News Check)
• Report: Almost all previous efforts to turn around failing schools have failed. (Justin Cohen)
• She would have made fewer materials for her lesson if only she’d had the time. (Dana Lawit)
• Americans think it’s too hard to fire teachers, but parents deserve most blame. (AP)
• The crucial difference between neighborhood schools and application schools. (Thompson)
• What the MET study has concluded so far and what is to come. (Quick and the Ed)
• The Board of Regents recommends lawmakers keep school funding formulas flat. (NYSUT)
• A teacher-blogger endorses the practice of having principals teach lessons. (Chaz)
• “If we don’t pass, she gets fired!” one student is overheard telling another. (Pissed Off Teacher)
• On the eve of Klein’s last PEP meeting, a thank you for fueling union activism. (Norm Scott)
• “Controversy is a necessary part of education,” Klein said at that last meeting. (GothamSchools)

Outgoing chancellor Joel Klein at his last Panel for Educational Policy meeting.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein vowed tonight that he will absolutely leave his position in January — even if efforts to block Mayor Bloomberg’s chosen successor succeed. Klein spoke at a meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy that held few distinctions except for the fact that it will be his last.

“I know it’s been controversial, but controversy is a necessary part of education,” Klein said, reflecting on his eight-plus years as chancellor. “I respect that, and I understand that when you do make changes and look at things differently that it’s going to upset people.”

He added, “I don’t know of any other way to change a system.”

The Panel for Educational Policy is the current incarnation of the city school board, formed in 2002 just as Mayor Bloomberg won control of the city schools and named Klein chancellor. Despite the historic circumstances, tonight’s meeting plugged along unremarkably, as many others have. Some protesting members of the public did attend, but they had a narrow issue in mind: opposition to the planned expansion of a small middle school in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Technical High School held tonight’s meeting.

Other panel meetings this year have included loud protests by busloads of parents who target Klein personally for everything from closing schools to overseeing falling test scores. Tonight’s tone harkened more to the first-ever meeting of the panel, which the New York Times described this way in a headline the next day:

New York State’s Board of Regents approved 15 new charter schools today that will open in New York City in the fall of next year.

Ten of those schools were authorized by the State University of New York’s Charter School Institute back in September and the remaining five were authorized today by the Board of Regents. The board also approved charters for three schools that will open in Mount Vernon, Rochester, and East Irondequoit.

Among the charter schools approved today is the New York City Montessori Charter School, the city’s first public Montessori school. Also on the list is Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School, the first charter school opened by the Expeditionary Learning network in the city. Expeditionary Learning currently oversees ten district schools in New York.

The two charter schools that New Visions is opening in the South Bronx are the only typical four-year high schools in the group. Launch Expeditionary Learning Charter School will, at full size, be a 6-12 school, and the Urban Dove Charter School will admit students who are ages 16-18 regardless of what grade they’re in. (more…)

A week after announcing that the city will recommend the closure of a controversial Manhattan charter school, city officials have begun to reach out to help parents plan where they will send their students next year.

In a letter sent yesterday, the charter school office executive director Recy Benjamin Dunn formally told parents that the city is recommending that the state shutter Ross Global Academy.

This is the first letter from city officials to Ross parents concerning the decision. City officials held a meeting with the school last week, and expect to release their final report recommending closure later this week or next, a Department of Education spokesman said.

Last year, when the city revoked the charter of East New York Preparatory School, officials set up a one-year program at the school that students could opt into rather than transferring to other district or charter schools. In this case, Ross parents have not yet missed the deadlines to apply to other schools and the city is encouraging them to submit applications before the Department of Education’s January deadline. (more…)

Would you trust your students to grade your teaching fairly? If you asked me, I probably wouldn’t. But information from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s two-year study of effective teaching and methods of evaluation is turning that conception on its head.

An article in the New York Times detailed the findings, which show that student surveys are surprisingly effective in judging teacher quality as measured by value-added data. Teachers in the study were ranked based on value-added scores, then these scores were compared to student responses:

Classrooms where a majority of students said they agreed with the statement, “Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time,” tended to be led by teachers with high value-added scores, the report said.

The same was true for teachers whose students agreed with the statements, “In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes,” and, “My teacher has several good ways to explain each topic that we cover in this class.”

Naysayers will likely take issue with the use of value-added data as a major component in this study. Teaching to the test, they’ll argue, will once again be valued over substantive instruction. However, by using student surveys, the study actually debunks that criticism of value-added data. (more…)

I recently had a conversation with a colleague in which we tried to pinpoint the most difficult aspect of our jobs. One challenge I have as a special education teacher is that I teach four different lessons every day and I don’t get a chance to refine the English lesson from the morning class for the afternoon one.

My colleague’s challenge is not executing lessons, but the planning that goes into each of them. Planning is perhaps the most time-consuming component of teaching, and also the most important. While I’ve become more efficient with my planning — able to identify student learning outcomes more quickly and design engaging instruction — I still have a lot to learn. It also still takes me a lot of time. Here’s how I typically plan:

Point A: I have nothing. Nothing to put in students’ hands, nothing to plan a lesson. (more…)

• Shael Polakow-Suransky says he wants to see more and better tests for city students. (Times)
• The city unveiled a plan to make tenure less automatic. (GothamSchools, Post, Times, WSJ, WNYC, NY1)
• Two Murry Bergtraum HS students were arrested for fighting, but not for last week’s riot. (NY1)
• Visiting Hillcrest HS in Queens, Cathie Black told officials she’s ready to start the job. (NY1)
• President Obama signed a bill to make school lunches healthier and more available. (Washington Post)

• Francis Lewis High School students have extended an open invitation to Cathie Black. (NY1)
• Black can see both sides of the debate over releasing teacher ratings, she told the Daily News.
• Unusually for high school, one Bronx teacher has “looped” with many of his students. (JD2718)
• The city’s policy on bringing the holiday season to school: Discuss, but don’t endorse. (Insideschools)
• David Bloomfield: The way Cathie Black was chosen has fatally damaged her leadership. (EdVox)
• Parents say they don’t understand why the city wants to close MS 571 in Prospect Heights. (The Local)
• Two years after delivering a scathing review, an expert praises a Boston charter school. (Mike Goldstein)
• A top DOE charter school official is leaving to head the Hebrew Charter School Center. (JTA)
• Advice for teachers who want to write lessons about national education news stories. (Learning Network)
• An assistant principal at Grover Cleveland HS in Queens is bringing geocaching to his students. (Times)
• Geoffrey Canada says libraries play an important role in improving schools. (School Library Journal)
• A $3 billion Ca. initiative to lower class size and add counselors is working, a study says. (EdWeek)
• Students should rate their teachers, but not on anonymous sites, says one teacher. (Pissed Off Teacher)
• A teacher reports being told her school is going charter, then not. (Peace in the Classroom)
• Students at Brooklyn’s John Jay campus aren’t happy about a new school moving in. (OTBKB)

Although principals won’t get their first look at the city’s new tenure rules until tomorrow, one principal I spoke to today has high hopes for the new system.

For years, tenure has been treated as a formality, the principal said, so some school leaders put little effort into thinking about whether it should be granted. The new rules may prompt them to take the process of granting tenure more seriously, she said.

“I think the new system is probably not such a bad thing,” she said, telling a story about how her school had been hurt by what’s known as “tenure by estoppel.”

Tenure by estoppel, which is part of state law, means that a teacher can get tenure after a certain period of time if her principal never makes a decision.

In this person’s school, there was a teacher who had been given an extra year of probation and was up for tenure, which the former-principal knew she hadn’t earned. (more…)