GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Hundreds of students at Murry Bergtraum High School rioted through the hallways today after the school’s principal told teachers not to give out bathroom passes.

Teachers at the lower Manhattan school said that the day began with a fight between two students on the building’s third floor. After the fight, Bergtraum principal Andrea Lewis reportedly announced over the school’s loud speaker that in the future, students who fought would be arrested. Lewis reportedly told students and staff that for the rest of the day, the school’s bathrooms would be closed and teachers should not issue bathroom passes.

In a school of over 2,600 students, this news did not sit well.

“She also said that in the case of emergency, kids could use the bathrooms in the nurse’s office, but by then, given the nature of adolescents, the message had been delivered that the bathrooms would be shut,” a teacher said. (more…)

New York State’s annual worst-of list is out today and it includes 21 new struggling schools that New York City will have to radically change in the next several years.

Many of these schools are already on the city’s radar. Two of them — the School for Community Research and Learning and I.S. 195 — are on the list of schools the city plans to begin closing next year. Others, such as Herbert Lehman High School, earned poor grades on their annual progress reports and were considered for closure.

With the addition of these 21 schools, the number of schools eligible for (but not yet undergoing) federal “turnaround” strategies is up to 43. By next April, the city’s Department of Education has to send the state a plan for how it will improve each of these schools.

“We need to apply to the state with a school-by-school plan with a proposed budget and we’ll go back and forth with them on a draft until they finally approve,” said DOE spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld. “We have a technical deadline of sometime in April, but obviously we want to get moving on this as soon as possible.” (more…)

My school is one of many undertaking an aggressive anti-bullying campaign. Last week we kicked off this effort with a Respect for All Rally. Earlier this week, we had visitors from a group called Making Books Sing. I really admired the energy and creative approach they brought to the bullying discussion. Unfortunately, what I saw from my kids was less uplifting.

The volunteers acted out an exchange between a bully and her victim. The bully wrote a nasty note and a nasty message on the board, bringing her victim to tears. My kids hooted and howled at the note. They thought it was hilarious.

Later, the visitors solicited suggestions for how the victim could stop the bully. Ignore her, tell a teacher, and tell her how she feels were popular suggestions. I was happy to hear those lessons of mine had stuck. But also popular, and much more enthusiastically shared, were hit her and write something mean about her.

The takeaway from the visit was that everyone in a community is responsible for stopping bullying. The kids learned the words bullying, empathy and bystander. However, after watching my kids reactions to the skit, I was wondered how much one lesson could do to change their behavior. Clearly, there’s a lot of work left to do.

• The dispute over the release of teacher ratings went before a judge yesterday. (GS, NY1, DN)
• It’s not clear when the judge will issue her decision, but it’s likely to be appealed. (NYT)
• An employee of the judge said a ruling could come as early as next week. (Post)
• Andrea Peyser: the union’s arguments only serve to protect the seniority system. (Post)
• A group of parents sued the state over Cathie Black’s appointment as chancellor. (GS, Post, DN)
• Leanna Landsmann lays out three things Black should be able to do well as schools chief. (Daily News)
• With many small schools up for closure in the Bronx, parents call reforms a sham. (Daily News)
• Shut out of P.S. 87, a parent says she’s grateful for UWS Success Academy, a charter school. (Post)
• A bill that would give green cards to some undocumented students is going to the Senate. (Daily News)
• D.C.’s interim schools chief is moving to close and consolidate some schools. (Washington Post)
• There’s backlash in Philly to a story about a $7.5 million no-bid contract for school safety. (Inquirer)
• NJ Gov. Chris Christie’s move to limit pay for school chiefs is angering GOPers. (WSJ)

• A second lawsuit is challenging Cathie Black’s appointment. (GS, City Room, State of Politics)
• Bill de Blasio is “disappointed” that Black hedged on where she’d send her kids to school. (Daily Politics)
• Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emmanuel also wouldn’t say where he’d send his children. (WBEZ)
• Is Cathie Black the Mr. Wensleydale of public education? (Accountable Talk)
• A school turnaround specialist argues states should rethink how they spend federal grants. (Mass Insight)
• A Jamaica H.S. teacher argues the city and union are both responsible for the ATR crisis. (Answer Sheet)
• Michelle Rhee wants her new organization to act as a political counterbalance to unions. (WBEZ)
• A documentary on pressures on students is gaining a grassroots following. (Times)
• InsideSchools has posted new reviews to help parents select a middle school. (InsideSchools)

Calling the city’s reports on teacher effectiveness “misleading and grossly flawed,” lawyers for the teachers union argued that the city has no right to release them with teachers’ names attached.

Attorneys representing the city’s Department of Education, United Federation of Teachers, and several city news outlets made their arguments for-and-against the information’s release in New York’s Supreme Court today. Over the summer, several reporters asked for teachers’ effectiveness scores with names included under the Freedom of Information Law. Though the city initially planned to give reporters the scores, it left the decision in the court’s hands after the union sued to prevent the release of teachers’ names.

Contained in documents called Teacher Data Reports, the scores measure how a teachers’ students performed on state math and reading tests against how a model predicted their students would perform. Though the city and union have agreed to include these scores as a factor in teacher evaluations, they’ve become a lightning rod for criticism as some academics have questioned their reliability.

Arguing before Justice Cynthia Kern, a lawyer for the union said the scores with teachers’ names attached are exempt from disclosure under Freedom of Information law because they are intra-agency documents and because they have the potential to harm teachers, impinging on their right to privacy. (more…)

A group of city parents, including State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, has filed the second legal challenge to the appointment of publishing executive Cathie Black as schools chancellor.

Like the first lawsuit, which a Brooklyn parent filed last week, the challenge focuses on the waiver that State Education Commissioner David Steiner granted Black to exempt her from the education certification normally required for school district leaders.

Steiner granted Black the waiver on the condition that Black appoint a seasoned educator as Chief Academic Officer.

In today’s suit, lawyers Norman Siegel and Herbert Teitelbaum argue that the state law that says the commissioner may grant a waiver to candidates with experience that is “substantially equivalent” to the certification cannot be interpreted to also consider the qualifications of a deputy.

Many of the parents named as plaintiffs of the suit are members of the “Deny Waiver Coalition,” the group that has spearheaded the opposition to Black’s appointment. (more…)

Yesterday was not a good day for my students. Here’s the day a hypothetical junior might have had:

The student wakes up at 6 a.m. to be the first in his family to hit the bathroom. With six people sharing one stall, the student knows that if he is not the first, he will be late for school. He rushes to get out before his older sister starts banging on the door and yelling at him. Out with plenty of time, he sits down for breakfast, only to be interrupted by his grandmother asking him to help get his little siblings ready for school. He does this with a sigh of resignation, knowing that he’ll be cutting it close now to get to school on time, but at least knowing he can get breakfast there. He rushes out the door to make sure he catches the first of two buses that will take him to the subway that will take him to school. Despite wind chills in the teens, the student is wearing a hand-me-down jacket that hardly even stops the wind, let alone keep him warm.

The student gets off the train at 8:15, and is greeted on the street by a dozen or so members of the YB gang that is there every morning on the corner. He is momentarily thankful for his lousy jacket, because he knows that he won’t be the target of harassment or mugging, at least not this cold morning. The student stops at the corner store to pay a dollar to check the cell phone that his grandmother insists he carries with him, but which he can’t bring into school. He arrives at the school building at 8:30, 15 minutes before the start of first period, where he spends the next 10 minutes waiting outside to get through the schools’s metal detectors. When he starts loosing feeling in his limbs, he thinks having a nice coat might be worth the risk. He is next in line for scanning at 8:40, just enough time to grab breakfast and make it to class on time, when the girl in front of him sets off the metal detector. Turns out it was just all her hairpins, but the delay in the line forces the student to choose between getting breakfast and being on time for class. Despite the growling in his stomach, he chooses to make it to class on time. (more…)

• The city plans to shut 26 schools next year, the most it’s ever tried to close at once. (GS, DN, WSJ, NY1)
• Students at Kennedy High School, targeted for closure, say their school is improving. (NY1)
• The “work” alternatives to the rubber room still leave many reassigned teachers idle. (Times)
• Chancellor-to-be Cathie Black said she doesn’t know if she’d send her kids to public school today. (DN)
• Black also has yet to meet with teachers union President Michael Mulgrew. (Post)
• The Daily News argues Black has her education policy priorities straight.
• The city and teachers union head to court today over the release of teacher ratings. (NPR)
• A Brooklyn principal says the reports can be useful but does not think they should be public. (WNYC)
• NEA President Dennis Van Roekel argues against the release of the reports. (Daily News)
• Five other cities take varied approaches to using teacher value-added data. (WNYC)
• The city is joining a Gates-funded initiative to boost sharing between charter and district schools. (NY1)
• City officials asked for more time before beginning PCB clean-up at some schools. (Wall Street Journal)
• The city is appealing a judge’s ruling that it must bus middle school students on Staten Island. (NY1)
• One-quarter of Manhattan’s gun-possession defendants are high-school age or younger. (Post)
• New Jersey’s teachers union proposed a plan to make it easier to fire teachers. (Wall Street Journal)
• Compton, Ca. parents became the first to invoke a “parent trigger” for charter school takeover. (Times)

• The Daily News liveblogged its visit from Cathie Black today. (Daily Politics)
• The Campaign for Fiscal Equity wants the city to improve its school capacity data. (EdVox)
• Comptroller John Liu says he’s already looking into the city’s capacity numbers. (John Liu)
• New international test scores are out; the United States didn’t do so hot. (OECD)
• In its debut performance, Shanghai came in far ahead of everyone else. (Times)
• Checker Finn: Shanghai’s performance could mark a “Sputnik for the 21st Century.” (Flypaper)
• Of course, there’s a Sputnik moment every few years. (Kevin Huffman)
• The principal of Harlem’s Choir Academy said the close call with closure rallied the school. (City Room)
• California parents are already acting on a new law that lets them take over weak schools. (L.A. Weekly)
• The Empire Center predicts — again — that teacher pensions could cripple the state. (Daily Politics)
• The teacher suspended for blogging about being a sex worker says reassignment is fun. (Daily Transom)
• Literary types have launched a new online magazine for teens. (Figment.com)
• Chris Christie blames his predecessor for N.J. missing out on federal charter funding. (Phil. Inquirer)