GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Education historian Diane Ravitch spoke to the Parents Across America audience last night.

One of New York City’s most vocal parent activists is launching a national organization, enlisting parents in cities across the country in a fight against the Obama administration’s proposed changes to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

Called Parents Across America, the group was developed jointly by Leonie Haimson, the executive director of Class Size Matters in New York, and Julie Woestehoff, of Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) in Chicago. Its formal launch was at a forum last night in a public school in Tribeca, where parents from as far as San Francisco and Seattle traveled to share their unfortunate experiences with local education laws and policies.

Parents Across America’s platform is against much of what Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has done, such as his competitive grant program Race to the Top, and the federal School Improvement Grants he’s given to states to turn around their lowest-performing schools. The organization also opposes Duncan’s blueprint for what he wants out of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s eventual reauthorization. (more…)

“Dear Ms. Pallister,” reads the meticulous handwriting of a second-grader at my school. “Happy Birthday!  The school commutiay would’nt be the same without you! I remember you helped me and M with math about coins. Are you excited that today is your birthday? Or, you are not very excited?  I adore you very much! Sincerely, A.”

“Dear Ms. Pallister,” reads another. “Happy Birthday you are the tec good teechr tetr in Plot! Love, T.” and on the back, “wiuh you are A tech tecch r wiuh?” This one has green marker looped in a zigzag around every word and is one of the few I really can’t decipher.

Another simply says in pencil in the upper left corner “u  p  y  o  g” and underneath that “You pick your own gift,” and in the middle in green marker, “Ms. Pallister.” I am potentially the most intrigued by this card, but there is no identifying sign anywhere on it, so I don’t know which child is promising me a gift of my choice, or if that is necessarily even the intended message.

One of the most continually astounding and often frustrating aspects of teaching in an elementary school is seeing the dramatic spans of academic achievement and developmental ability within a single classroom. I am continually torn in how to respond to that gap. (more…)

• Just 23 percent of city students leave high school college ready, new state data shows. (Times, WSJ)
• Mayor Bloomberg presented his case for ending seniority-based layoffs in Albany yesterday. (Post)
• But many lawmakers greeted the mayor’s call with skepticism and indifference. (Daily News)
• The mayor also called for reducing public spending on private tuition for special ed students. (WNYC)
• Now when parents skip lunch payments, city schools have to absorb the loss. (Times)
• Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries wants to introduce legislation to halt school closings for a year. (NY1)
• Queens parents heckled Cathie Black last night when they felt she didn’t answer their questions. (NY1)
• More than 2,000 charter students, parents and teachers lobbied in Albany for facilities funding. (NY1)
• Teachers and parents at closing schools worry that supports will vanish as the schools phase out. (DN)
• The EPA found PCB contamination at a fourth city school, this time in the Bronx. (WSJ, NY1)
• Nationally, school turnarounds are stalling because districts lack qualified principal candidates. (Times)
• The Wall Street Journal urges states to close funding gaps between charters and district schools.
• Mayoral control is shaping to be a big issue in the Chicago mayor’s race. (Chicago Tribune)
• A study found a funding gap between D.C.’s selective and neighborhood schools. (Washington Post)

• The state’s budget director said the city’s reserves mean teacher layoffs should not be necessary. (DN)
• Mayor Bloomberg’s budget director shot back that the state’s math is flat-out wrong. (State of Politics)
• Bloomberg wants to make it harder for special ed students to use public funds for private school. (WNYC)
• The U.S. never had any “glory days” of public education, a new report suggests. (Curriculum Matters)
• A UC-Boulder study questioned the precision of the L.A. Times’ teacher rankings. (Answer Sheet)
• Will Cathie Black’s rocky relationship with the public make it harder for her to ask Albany for money? (DN)
• Early word from the “Parents Across America” event tonight: Ravitch’s recommendations. (EdNotes)
• Randi Weingarten says the current political vibe between teachers and management is “toxic.” (HuffPo)
• More than 2,000 charter parents went to Albany today to lobby for more funding. (WTEN)
• Would Cathie Black’s “self-promoting” ways just be called “business savvy” if she was a man? (Jezebel)
• Just 28 percent of science teachers follow national guidelines for teaching evolution, says a report. (NYT)

PS 58 special education teacher Mark Anderson (right) talks to State Deputy Education Commissioner John King and Regents Research Fellow Amy McIntosh about teacher evaluations.

Teachers often complain that politicians and bureaucrats rarely craft education policy with an eye towards their experiences inside the classroom.

Hoping to help fix that problem, a new project has vaulted the conversations and insights of one group of New York teachers from online message boards onto the desks of the state’s top education officials.

Last October, a group of about 60 teachers began logging onto a website called the VIVA Project. On the site, they began discussing a question: What measures should considered as part of the state’s new system for evaluating teachers?

In January, four of those teachers delivered lessons from that conversation to State Deputy Education Commissioner John King, one of the officials charged with creating the regulations that the new evaluations will follow. (more…)

Schools Chancellor Cathie Black is on the cover of this week’s New York Magazine, which carries an evenhanded-yet-damning profile of the Hearst magazine executive-turned-public schools chief.

Though Black’s public relations team has kept her on a short leash of late around the city’s education beat reporters, reporter Chris Smith was able to spend some time with the chancellor, gathering her reflections on her first Panel for Educational policy meeting in January and on whether she checked her Blackberry during it.

Smith’s piece, titled “Just Smile,” after a bit of advice Black offered students who were presenting their start-up business plans, contains some of the sharpest detail yet about her former magazine industry colleagues’ impressions of her. (She’s a good speaker. She’s an endless self-promoter.) It also has quotes from the chancellor that shed some light on how much she’s learned and how far she has to go.

Black tells Smith that she’s trying to empower public school principals and Smith follows up with a question about exactly what power principals currently lack. Black responds and gets tangled. She begins by talking about the power principals already have to control much of their budgets and ends several conversation stops away on the topic of public opinion. (more…)

Stacey Gauthier, principal of Renaissance Charter High School, and Marc Waxman, who is opening a charter school in Denver, are corresponding about school policy. Read their entire exchange.

Dear Marc,

Your response to my last post really got me thinking. One of the main problems with a discussion like this is that we are in the midst of a crisis as we are trying to make sense of the issues. This is very hard to do when long-standing schools are being closed all around us, lives uprooted, hard-fought-for union negotiated policies challenged, budgets dwindling and our neediest student populations growing. And yes, I do think we are in the midst of an educational crisis in New York City, New York State and this country. As educational systems we are not successful at educating all of the young people under our care.

Now, before all the comments pour in on this statement, please know that 1) I recognize that there are many schools, even failing schools, that educate students who succeed academically and 2) I most certainly understand that the issues of poverty and the broader social disadvantages make our jobs much, much harder to do. Still, we cannot and should not allow these to become excuses for our not doing all we can to fight for the neediest students’ success. I would find it hard to believe that there is anyone who would say that our system in New York City is working the way we want it to. However, if there is someone, I would love to hear from that person.

I do believe in our accountability as educational professionals and organizations. On a personal note regarding accountability, I believe that every child that fails in my school is my failure. And the reverse is also true  — every child that succeeds is my success. I think every educational professional should feel this responsibility. I also firmly support parental accountability. It is only with the collective responsibility that we can make the shift from individualized success to systemic success. This is why education is more than a profession in so many ways — it is a mission. This is also why some of the arguments out there that attack the many hard-working, dedicated and mission-driven professionals — teachers, school staff, administrators — need to stop. But conversations around what our effectiveness should look need to be expanded and moved from blame to action. And with this action plan must come the infrastructure necessary to support success.

I would like to ask you for a moment to pretend that we had the advantage of knowing all we know right now about the school systems we work in and we were starting from scratch to set-up the best infrastructure to support a system of great schools. Sure, it is the perfect fantasy: 20/20 hindsight, no emotions, no change, no PEP meetings, no constant blame-game interviews of why we are where we are today. I’m getting tired of it all and believe it is stifling the much-needed work that is urgently waiting to get done while we fight.

Here are the questions I would ask: (more…)

News from New York City:

• A profile of Cathie Black paints her as a self-promoter with a big mouth and a deep Rolodex. (NY Mag)
• The profile reveals that Black tried and failed not to use her Blackberry at PEP meetings. (Daily News)
• A big test for Black will be whether she is taken seriously when she lobbies in Albany. (Daily News)
• A legal pathway out of “last in, first out” seniority layoff rules has precedent in California. (Post)
• The principal of PS 272 worries that her progress will be undone if young teachers are laid off. (Post)
• The number of city schools not meeting federal performance guidelines could double this week. (Post)
• A city teacher successfully sued so her learning disabled son can attend private school. (Daily News)
• A lawsuit alleges dangerous conditions in Riker’s Island’s juvenile detention facility. (NY Mag)
• A Queens lawmaker is again calling on the city to close schools on the Lunar New Year. (Daily News)
• Mayor Bloomberg defended Black by belittling those who protested against her. (NY1, Daily News, Post)
• People petition the PEP even though its conclusions are foregone, Michael Winerip writes. (Times)
• Preordained results like those at PEP meetings are antidemocratic, Michael Daly says. (Daily News)
• The Post says Bloomberg was right to criticize the protestors, especially Michael Mulgrew.
• Parents and teachers at PS 114 are relieved that the school hasn’t been closed — yet. (NY1)
• The Brooklyn principal who let teachers drink at a school event is quitting in June. (Post)
• The Post says some city students deserve to be waterboarded, and the NYCLU shouldn’t help them.
• The Daily News says a UFT map of school closures doesn’t represent the issue accurately.

And beyond:

• The State Board of Regents is set to take steps to change the law to charge GED test-takers a fee. (Post)
• Gov. Cuomo says any school budget cuts should include superintendent salary caps. (Times)
• Wealthy donors are saving Catholic schools, and specifying how they change. (Times)
• Eight teachers have thrown their hats in the ring for the presidency of Los Angeles’s union. (L.A. Times)
• Richard Whitmire says D.C.’s example shows that firing-rule changes are necessary but messy. (Post)
• The Obama Administration is pushing science, but nationwide science fairs are on the wane. (Times)
• In Boston, charter schools are opening at a rapid clip. (Boston Globe)
• D.C.’s neighborhood and selective schools are found to be funded unequally. (Washington Post)
• New Jersey officials are moving quickly to pick Newark’s next superintendent. (N.J. Spotlight)

• Mayor Bloomberg called rowdy critics of school closures “embarrassing” for America. (City Room)
• The mayor also said protestors were mainly bad teachers concerned with job preservation. (Observer)
• Reports from charter school inspections show low academic expectations. (Brooklyn Rail)
• Insideschools is introducing video tours of some of the schools it profiles. (Insideschools)
• What does it look like when Angry Kids join book clubs? (Miss Brave)
• One teacher’s modest proposal to help her students pass the Regents: 24-hour school. (Pissed Off)
• A Park Slope parent blasts the lack of transparency behind the city’s closure policies. (HuffPo)
• Senators from Colorado and Washington are stepping up their roles in ESEA reauthorization. (EdWeek)

Seven takeaways from this week’s second marathon Panel for Educational Policy meeting, for those who don’t have time for 6,000-plus words, minute-to-minute updates:

1. Sometimes a delay is just a delay.

Forty minutes before the panel meeting was set to begin, a DOE spokesman informed reporters by email that the city was withdrawing PS 114 from closure consideration, at least for the moment. Parents and teachers from the school greeted the news with hope that the DOE was reconsidering closing their school, which suffered under the leadership of a notorious principal for years.

From 5:21 p.m.:

Just after receiving the e-mail about P.S. 114, Anna walks by a group of people holding signs that argue for keeping 114 open. “I read them the DOE’s e-mail, and they start cheering,” she reports. “They hadn’t been told they were off the list tonight.”

P.S. 114 parent Jimmy Orr tells Anna: “We’re overwhelmed. If it’s true, we’re elated. It’s a delay, but it gives us hope that we can turn things around.”

But a day later, it’s clear that the DOE doesn’t intend to reconsider closing the school. P.S. 114′s closure has been postponed until the March 1 meeting of the PEP. (more…)