GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Today:

• Ending “last-in first-out” teacher hiring rules is at the top of the mayor’s agenda in Albany. (WSJ)
• Participation in a prestigious science competition has fallen 75 percent since 1998. (Post)
• The state agency that supervises higher ed schools isn’t shutting down unlicensed ones. (Daily News)
• The Archdiocese of New York is closing 13 city schools, six of them in the Bronx. (Daily News)
• Mayor Bloomberg’s school comments earned him boos at an MLK Day celebration. (CBS)
• Bloomberg is still trying to put Cathie Black’s recent birth control comments behind him. (Post)
• State assemblyman: The public jumped on Black’s birth control quip, but ignores the abortion rate. (Post)
• Readers say Black needs to have more control when talking to the public. (Post)
• As we reported last week, Explore Excel Charter School is planning to replace P.S. 114. (Post)
• Readers respond to a piece about the New American Academy’s rough beginnings. (Times)
• A New Jersey schoolteacher debated reforms with Gov. Chris Christie via Twitter. (Post)

Here:

• Leadership failure appears to have caused Columbia Secondary School its recent troubles. (Times)
• The new English Regents exam is shorter and requires less writing. (Post)
• Fallout continues over Cathie Black’s birth control quip. (NY1, Post, Daily News)
• Bloomberg says Black’s comment came out of inexperience with the public sector. (Post, Daily News)
• The Post says Black has little room for error and must watch her words in the future.
• Michael Daly: Black is a true chancellor, in the Latin sense of the word. (Daily News)
• The Post says Randi Weingarten’s departure benefits from the UFT were excessive and unusual.
• The Beacon HS teacher who resigned after taking students to Cuba now works in New Orleans. (Times)
• Families worked together to open a new play space for children with special needs. (Daily News)
• The city is planning to build a new school in Kensington, but some think it should go elsewhere. (Post)
• A city philanthropist has stepped in to save Chess-in-the-Schools. (WSJ)
• The briefly banned student play that criticizes Joel Klein’s leadership was staged Friday. (Daily News)
• Wall Street’s Finance Museum offers students the chance to practice real-life budgeting. (NY1)
• The Post says Gov. Cuomo should start his push to reinvent government by ending “last in, first out” rules.

Elsewhere:

• Implementing the California law that lets parents revamp schools is proving complicated. (L.A. Times)
• A Gates Foundation analyst says budget cuts are an opportunity to computerize instruction. (NPR)
• Newark is using a teacher training model that uses students as instructors. (Times)
• N.J. Gov. Chris Christie wants school districts to open special schools for autistic students. (Times)
• Miami-Dade schools are following a class size reduction law by operating virtual classrooms. (Times)
• In Miami, Haitian students who enrolled after the earthquake were wealthy and high-performing. (Times)
• The Times comes out against Arizona’s new law banning Latino ethnic studies classes.
• Nick Kristoff: Chinese are less impressed by their school system than Americans are. (Times)
• D.C.’s mayor says the teacher evaluation system is unfair to teachers in high-poverty schools. (WaPo)
• A Maryland father robocalls the school board that robocalled him at 4:30 a.m. (WaPo)
• Texas’s senior teachers are protected from layoffs by “continuing contracts,” like tenure. (Times)
• An upstate math teacher’s lessons on making math physical have gone viral. (Times)

• A DOE spokeswoman says Cathie Black regrets her “off-handed joke” about birth control. (WSJ)
• A teacher predicts that any more foot-in-mouth moments may cost Black her job. (Accountable Talk)
• Mayor Bloomberg also apologized that Black postponed a school visit on the non-snow day. (DN)
• Peter Murphy disputes Juan Gonzalez’ take on the charter school funding freeze lift. (Chalkboard)
• Tennessee tea partiers are demanding that schools limit teaching about “minority experience.” (TPM)
• Arne Duncan will visit Minnesota next week, home of the new House ed committee chair. (EdWeek)
• Liam Julian: reform types can seem as rhetorically hollow as teachers unions. (Flypaper)
• Mike Petrilli: it’s only a matter of time before video cameras are used to monitor teachers. (Edu Gadfly)
• Andy Rotherham: cameras are best used not for accountability, but to improve teachers. (Eduwonk)
• The NY Public Library wants kids to adapt Newbery Award-winning books into 90-second videos. (io9)
• And here’s “A Wrinkle in Time” in a minute and a half. (Vimeo)

School closure season began in earnest this week, as city officials began to hold required public hearings at each of the 25 district schools it hopes to shutter. But in contrast to last year’s meetings — where officials often sat impassively as school supporters emotionally protested the closures — officials are now using the hearings to directly respond to attendees’ criticisms and concerns.

At Queens’ Beach Channel High School, which held its hearing Thursday evening, the meeting format had changed, but the anger over the proposed closure — while quieter than last year’s — was still palpable.

At last year’s hearing, vocal supporters of Beach Channel did not turn out in the vast numbers as supporters of other schools slated for closure like Jamaica High School, but those who did were passionate about saving the last zoned high school in the Rockaways.

This year, a smaller but still fervent crowd came to the school to make many of the same arguments. The closure of Far Rockaways High School had flooded Beach Channel with needy students just as the school’s budget began to be slashed, they maintained.  And they argued that the Rockaways community needs a zoned high school, lest students be forced into long commutes to other, overcrowded high schools in Queens.

“Right now there is no incentive to send a local child to this school,” said LaVern Powell, who has taught living environment and human biology at Beach Channel since 2003. (more…)

Last year we wrote about Debby Lee Cohen, a public school parent and founder of the organization Styrofoam Out of Schools (SOS) who worked tirelessly with the Department of Education to bring Trayless Tuesday to city schools. Because of her, every Tuesday all city schools are served lunch on paper “boats,” thereby eliminating the use of 850,000 Styrofoam trays each week (the amount used each day for lunch) — which if stacked on top of each other would be 2 miles high or 8.5 times the height of the Empire State Building.

One could easily argue that Trayless Tuesday has been the most significant environmental victory for NYC schools. But here’s even better news. Schools can also use the paper boats on Pizza Friday and every morning for breakfast, further cutting down on waste. All principals, parents, and teachers need to do is ask!

I know, given the extraordinary bureaucracy of the New York City public school system, this news may sound too good and simple to be true, but as a parent serving on the wellness committee at my son’s school, I can tell you that all three schools in our building now serve breakfast each day and pizza on Friday on paper boats, in addition to enjoying the paper boats on Trayless Tuesday. Many parents have asked whether the paper boats can be recycled even when stained. And the answer, I’m happy to report, is yes! (more…)

Hail a cab this weekend, and your in-ride entertainment may come courtesy of New York City public school students.

Starting today, 12,000 taxis will be featuring this video of students at Fort Greene’s Urban Assembly Academy of Arts and Letters interviewing musician Wyclef Jean. The interview was set up by AOL Music, which is helping run a 12-week journalism apprenticeship program at the school in partnership with the non-profit Citizen Schools.

The full text of the students’ interview is here. Jean told the students about his childhood at P.S. 191 after moving to Brooklyn from Haiti with his family:

Bryonna: Do you remember what you were doing when you were 11 and 12?

Wyclef Jean: Yeah, I was getting a whooping by my moms! Eleven and 12 years old in Brooklyn, I was in [Public School] 191, and I was just trying to figure out how to speak English, ’cause I couldn’t even speak English yet. So I was talking with the accent, very slow, trying to figure it out. I wasn’t bilingual at the time, and there was a class that would teach you English. So, that’s what I was doing at 11 and 12. (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.

When a school is starting out, big changes mark each new year. The Brooklyn Arts Academy, where I taught 10th-grade history, added an 11th grade and around 100 students in 2007, my second year at the school. Over half the teaching staff was new and we also had a dean for the first time. Compounding these changes was a drastic revision of the school’s structures.

The principal presented these revisions to the grade-level team leaders (me and two newly-hired teachers) at a special meeting just before the start of school. He explained to us that he had spent the summer putting together a staff handbook which outlined “structures and deliverables” for the coming school year. He asked us to familiarize ourselves with the handbook, and said we should go over it during our first grade-level team meetings.

All staff members reported for work the following day. The principal gathered everyone together for introductions, after which he distributed copies of the handbook. He told us that we could find the answers to all our questions about the operation of the school within its contents. Then, we were dismissed to go meet as grade-level teams.

The handbook provided information about student expectations and teacher responsibilities.  It came with a CD-ROM containing instructional templates (for lesson plans and curriculum maps), behavioral referral forms, charts that showed behavioral infractions and their associated consequences, and many other documents. On paper, it looked like our school would be far more structured this year.

But how do you turn ideas on paper into a systematic plan for a school, particularly when those ideas are not original but adapted from a different institution? (more…)

• An internal document shows city plans to site new schools in the buildings of closing schools. (Times)
• Hundreds of DOE administrators took home millions in bonuses based on test score increases. (Post)
• Tonja Weary, the master teacher at Chelsea HS, is worn out from helping 42 colleagues. (WNYC)
• The teachers union formally appealed a ruling that teachers rankings can be released. (GS, DN)
• Brooklyn’s P.S. 189 is adapting to help an influx of refugees from the Haitian earthquake. (NY1)
• On the day Cathie Black opted to keep schools open, she postponed a planned school visit. (Daily News)
• Black told a Manhattan overcrowding committee the city faces “many Sophie’s choices.” (Tribeca Trib)
• A Prospect Heights elementary school is fighting a proposal to put a charter in the building. (Daily News)
• The city must shift $32 mill. to charter schools after Albany unexpectedly lifted a funding freeze. (DN)
• The USDA may overhaul school lunch nutritional requirements for the first time in 15 years. (NY1)

• The Board of Regents voted in higher math standards for K-1 students. (Buffalo News)
• Columbia Prof. Michael Rebell calls the ruling on teacher ratings “outrageous.” (Hechinger)
• Legislators are worried that Gov. Cuomo will raise CUNY/SUNY tuition. (WSJ)
• Dean Meminger goes back to his Bronx Catholic school, which is being closed. (NY1)
• AFT President Randi Weingarten: “There is not a bad-teacher epidemic.” (Businessweek)
• The upside of a faux snow day: small class sizes, kids who want to be there. (Ruben Brosbe)
• The stimulus may have affected schools less than schools affected the stimulus. (Eduflack)
• When some students are unhappy, they find ways of holding schools accountable. (ED.gov Blog)
• A teachers union member looks at why NYC contract negotiations have stalled. (Ed in the Apple)
• If students free write for 10 min. before an exam, they’re less anxious and perform better. (AP)
• Alumni of an iconic Detroit school are trying to save the building before it’s bulldozed. (NPR)

A feeling of anticipation had been building since Monday’s weather report. But when I checked the news Wednesday morning, I learned there was to be no snow day. I felt like a kid who woke up on Christmas morning with no presents. As a Jew I should have been better prepared for this feeling, but I wasn’t.

I wasn’t sure how reliable the subways would be, so I rushed out the door. Lo and behold, I got to school in record time, and walked up to my building about 40 minutes earlier than usual. I would have a little time to breathe and settle in for once before picking up the kids, I thought. But inside, it was all hands on deck.

Most of the teachers in my school commute from New Jersey, Long Island, or Westchester County, so we had 36 teachers absent. I wasn’t surprised, but at the same time the number was mind-boggling. The list of classes in need of coverage, usually three or four names long, was three columns long.

If it hadn’t been for the low turnout of students our school would have been in an even bigger state of chaos. My class had 14 of 28 students in attendance, but this was one of the highest in the school. Most of the grades were grouped in one classroom.

It was a little stressful at first, but at the same time the school pulled together really nicely. Preps were moved around, lunch times were aggregated and the after-school program was canceled, all without incident. Throughout the experience, my principal was visibly involved with the process of making the day run smoothly, even helping out with lunch duty. Coffee and doughnuts were provided for teachers and she made a thank-you announcement over the loudspeaker. I felt incredibly grateful to have a principal who didn’t pass the buck today.

Meanwhile in the classroom, the kids were ecstatic to have so much extra breathing room and attention. (more…)

As expected, the city teachers union today formally appealed the State Supreme Court ruling that would allow the city to make public teachers’ names and performance ratings.

On Monday, Justice Cynthia Kern ruled that the city must respond to media outlets’ Freedom of Information Law requests for Teacher Data Reports with individual teachers’ names attached. The union had sued to stop the release, arguing that releasing individuals’ performance ratings would illegally invade teachers’ privacy. The union also argues that the ratings are too flawed to be made public.

In its brief appeal, the union argues that the lower court erred in its interpretation of the law, saying that the judge should have determined whether the city could legally deny the media organizations’ request.

In the original decision, Kern ruled that the city had not acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner when it decided to release the teacher rankings, but explicitly did not make a judgement on whether the city could legally have chosen not to make the ratings public under the Freedom of Information Law.

In a statement released to reporters when the decision was handed down on Monday, city lawyer Jesse Levine said that the city would respect the union’s appeal and will not release the ratings before a second court has ruled. (more…)