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New chancellor Cathie Black made her debut at the Panel for Educational Policy tonight to a packed crowd that drowned out her remarks with boos and jeers — especially when Black mentioned the name of her new boss, Mayor Bloomberg.

“Let’s try to do this with some civility and decorum,” the panel’s chairman said as he introduced Black. Yet the crowd continued to shout and jeer, forcing Black to raise her voice as she delivered prepared remarks.

The remarks described what Black has learned on her tour of schools — “I’m seeing what makes an effective school leader and how a strong school culture can contribute to learning,” she said — and also named her priorities, including building a strong teacher evaluation system and empowering principals.

She also summarized the education agenda Bloomberg laid out in his State of the City address this morning. The mayor laid out a trio of changes tied to coming budget woes and projected teacher layoffs: legal changes to transform the way teachers are laid off; contractual changes to deflate the Absent Teacher Reserve pool of teachers on the payroll who don’t have formal positions; and reforms to the teacher pension plan to cut costs.

Hundreds of people packed Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene tonight for the panel meeting, including 80 who signed up to speak. The largest group includes teachers and students at the John Jay high school building in Park Slope who are protesting a plan to add an additional high school to the building.

(UPDATE: That plan passed the panel, with 11 members voting in favor. The panel members appointed by the Manhattan and Bronx borough presidents both abstained.)

When she began her remarks, Black praised the school board itself, offering a rare praise to the Panel for Education Policy, which has been belittled as a rubber stamp to the mayor by some and as an opportunity for political theater by others. ”This panel,” Black said, “has played a vital role in the major policy changes that have dramatically improved student outcomes in our city.”

• A Berkeley researcher thinks the Gates Foundation misinterpreted its own research findings. (EdWeek)
• Race to the Top changes have NY’s charter school laws ranking #5, up from #8. (The Chalkboard)
• Bloomberg’s State of the City address didn’t include anything new about education. (City Room)
• A former teacher says John Jay High School students feel excluded by the neighbors. (More Thoughtful)
• White House officials hint that education will be a big theme in Obama’s speech. (National Journal)
• Teachers at P.S. 114, which is slated for closure, defend their school. (Edwize)
• Ruben Brosbe says he joined Educators 4 Excellence to connect with teachers. (GS Community)
• Paterson, N.J. is trying to duplicate the Harlem Children’s Zone model. (WSJ)
• Cathie Black’s critics have scrapped plans to toss condoms at her for her birth control joke. (Ed Notes)
• A city parent says flawed value-added rankings are the best we’ve got, so we should get them. (DoubleX)

Mayor Bloomberg renewed his push today for the end of seniority-based layoffs for public school teachers, who are facing greater odds of losing their jobs this year than they have in decades.

During his State of the City address this afternoon, Bloomberg said that his first priority for legislators in Albany is pension reform. But a close second is ending last-in first-out — the seniority rules embedded in state law that could force the Department of Education to lay off teachers based on when they were hired.

New York City has not had to lay off teachers since the 1970s and, though it came close to layoffs last year, the city dodged them by taking away funds that would have gone to giving teachers raises. But this year, the city is operating without stimulus funds and with the expectation of deep education cuts from Albany. In his November budget address, the mayor predicted that the public schools would have to lose 6,100 teachers this year.

In his speech, Bloomberg noted that laying off the schools’ most recent hires, who are also the cheapest employees, will mean losing more teachers than if the city laid off older, more expensive teachers. It will also mean larger class sizes, he said, in an unusual appeal to some parents’ concerns about overcrowding. DOE officials typically downplay the importance of class size, and the mayor’s statement comes after Chancellor Cathie Black caused an uproar by joking that parents in Manhattan should use more birth control. (more…)

This post is long overdue, and I want to apologize for that, or any appearance that I was hiding my involvement with Educators 4 Excellence. The truth is, I work with E4E because I believe in what the group is doing. And I don’t believe what I believe just because I work with E4E.

Until recently, I didn’t know anything about E4E. I had read GothamSchools’ profile last April and joined their Facebook group, but that was the extent of my “membership.” Right after my (heavily edited) column on teacher data reports appeared in the New York Post, several commenters mentioned E4E, assuming I had some deeper affiliation. I didn’t, but ironically, these comments stoked my curiosity in the organization.

A week or so later, I attended an education policy panel featuring Diane Ravitch, then-Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky and … Education 4 Excellence’s co-founder Evan Stone. When the panel was over, I introduced myself to Evan and E4E’s outreach coordinator, Ryan Black. Soon after I sat down with Ryan, Evan and E4E’s cofounder, Sydney Morris, to talk about how I could be a part of the group.

But I realize how I got involved with E4E is much less important than why I got involved. The truth is since I started teaching, I have looked for ways to connect with other teachers who were not only passionate about our work as educators, but viewed it as part of a broader fight for social justice.

My closest peers in teaching were those who shared my passion for education and my belief that our work was inextricable from the larger conversation developing on education reform. (more…)

• After being pulled from PS 114, disastrous principal Maria Penaherrera is now an AP in the Bronx. (NY1)
• The city will spend $10 million on extra tutoring. (GothamSchools, Times, NY1, Daily News, WSJ)
• Chancellor Cathie Black visited a failing school for the first time last week. (GothamSchools)
• A Medgar Evers mom is fundraising so her daughter can go to an engineering conference. (Daily News)
• New testing has turned up dangerous levels of PCBs at additional city schools. (NY1, WNYC)
• N.J. Gov. Chris Christie announced 23 new charter schools for his state. (Times)
• Newark’s lame-duck superintendent, Clifford Janey, is formally stepping down. (WSJ, Star-Ledger)
• Atlanta’s once-thriving school system has been put on probation by an accreditation board. (Times)
• A state board charged with investigating unlicensed trade schools is overloaded. (Daily News)

• Schools are more segregated now than they were when Martin Luther King died. (Dana Goldstein)
• Spending MLK Day in service is like reforming schools without addressing equity issues. (Sara Mead)
• Maybe students should learn less about King and more about everyday heroes. (Rick Hess Straight Up)
• Or maybe the best way to honor King’s legacy is to spend the day in class. (Starting an Ed School)
• Leonie Haimson: Class size and segregation rise and fall in tandem. (NYC Public School Parents)
• Alexander Russo lays out a case against reauthorizing NCLB now. (This Week in Education)
• Sergio Hernandez digs up reporters’ emails during the early days of Cathie Black. (Village Voice)
• The DOE is okay with prudent teacher-bloggers, which is good since they have a lot to say. (City Room)
• Black’s demeanor today shows she may be a more reserved chancellor than Klein. (Gotham Gazette)
• Just three schools sent all of this year’s Intel Science Search finalists. (NYC Public School Parents)
• When students directed a play, both turmoil and learning ensued, Kate Quarfordt writes. (GS Community)
• Yes, heart surgeons get fired if they’re bad, but not if a few patients die — that’s expected. (Deven Black)
• A study by a founder of the Research Alliance finds students don’t learn much in college. (AtlanticWire)
• Miss Brave is having a really hard year, and it’s not her students’ fault. (Miss Brave Teaches NYC)
• There are many ways for parents to get involved, even if not many do. (Insideschools)
• Teachers and alums are trying to preserve archives about Bronx high schools as they close. (Edwize)
• A polemic against two spaces after a period (a convention that’s just ugly). (Slate)

A play written by Queens high school students finally came to the stage last Friday, after igniting controversy for its criticism of former Chancellor Joel Klein.

Administrators at Jamaica High School, which the city plans to close next year, initially banned the play. They then reversed their decision, permitting students to put on their adaptation of the Greek tragedy “Antigone.”

In the play, Klein assumes the role of King Creon, who in the original story favors one brother over another and refuses to give the one he dislikes a proper burial. But in the students’ play, the two brothers are Jamaica High School and the schools that now share its building. The adaptation’s authors are clear: Jamaica is the unpopular one.

In this scene, the prophet Tiresias comes to visit Klein to advise him against closing the school:

For the first time on Friday, Schools Chancellor Cathie Black visited one of the schools she’s planning to close.

Black spent Friday at I.S. 195, Roberto Clemente, a Harlem middle school that the city is trying to shutter this year. She also visited KIPP Infinity, a high-performing charter middle school located in the same building.

The city plans to replace I.S. 195, whose progress report score dropped from a B to a D last year, with a new middle school. According to an internal space planning document (pdf) obtained by the New York Times, the city wants to install a new charter school in the building, possibly a replica of Democracy Prep.

I.S. 195 is the first school Black has seen that received anything lower than a C grade. Since Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Black’s appointment in November, she has visited 28 schools, spanning every borough and grade. Of those schools, 11 were given A’s in the most recent round of progress reports. Nine of the schools received B grades and five received C’s.

Since she started visiting schools, Black has fielded questions over whether an itinerary so focused on high-performing schools has given her a realistic view of the challenges facing the school system. On her first official day as chancellor, a city spokeswoman said that while Black had not yet visited any of the city’s lowest-rated schools, she planned to.

I.S. 195 is also one of about 500 schools that Black announced will receive extra funds to tutor students who failed last year’s math and reading tests. Black’s visit to the school last week was unrelated to today’s announcement, Department of Education spokeswoman Deirdrea Miller said. (more…)

Nearly six months after the city saw students’ failure rates spike thanks to new, tougher state tests, Mayor Bloomberg is directing extra funding to ready those students for another round of exams.

The mayor announced today that the Department of Education will distribute $10 million to 532 schools where more than two-thirds of students failed the state’s math and English tests last year. The funding will target nearly half of the more than 100,000 students who did not meet the state’s newly heightened proficiency bar. Bloomberg said he expected 48,000 students to receive extra tutoring and in-school help as a result of the new funding.

DOE officials said schools should receive the money by February 8. Principals will be able to spend it on weekend classes, lessons after school, tutoring during the school day, and online programs that will help students cram for the upcoming exams. They will have to race to spend it in time for it to have an effect, as the English and math exams will be administered in early May. (more…)

“I can’t do this, Ms. Q. These kids hate me.” Eleventh-grader Ruth presses her forehead to the wall in the corner of the art room and sighs.

When my colleague Andrew Simon and I teamed up with Ruth and several other high school students last summer to create the Bronx Prep Performing Arts Academy, we all knew we were taking on a challenge. The program serves about 60 kids in grades 5-12. The kids are expected to grapple with sophisticated texts spanning poetry, prose, theater, musical theater and original oratory. And the whole thing rests on a model of peer mentoring and student leadership that represents a pretty radical shift away from the rigid, top-down culture I found when I first came to Bronx Prep as a theater teacher eight years ago.

In the months that I’ve been mentoring Ruth and her peers as directors and designers for our first-ever student-led musical, “Aladdin,” she’s has been the model of grace under pressure. Now I watch her bury her face in her hands and cry.

“All I want to do is support them so they can put on an awesome show,” she says between sobs, gesturing to the room next door where she’s left the cast of 40 fifth- through eighth-graders in the hands of her 11th-grade co-director. “But they won’t listen. So I have to be the bad guy. I don’t know what else to do. I yell. I give them detentions. I threaten to call parents. None of it works. And now they hate me.”

Ruth (far left) directs a dance rehearsal.

I know exactly what Ruth is going through. My own trial-by-fire as a first-year teacher may have played out nearly a decade ago, but this current experiment in student leadership has catapulted me right back to my own early days in the classroom, reliving everything the young leaders are currently facing-all the anxiety, the fear of failure, and the frustration that comes from wanting to do creative work with kids and instead feeling like a glorified traffic cop, and an incompetent one at that. (more…)