GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Do mom-and-pop charter schools get a raw deal when it comes to finding rent-free public space in New York City?

For many charter schools, the fight for space in public schools is a bruising one. In a column in the Sunday Times, writer Michael Winerip suggests that it’s that much worse for start-up charter schools that aren’t tied to charter networks or wealthy backers. The latter type, he argues, are able to open dozens of charter schools in public space all over the city. Meanwhile, a mom-and-pop charter school in Queens has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a privately-owned building when the city doesn’t give it space.

Is it a universal truth that the public school real estate hunt discriminates against start-ups? It’s not clear. The charter school Winerip mentions, Growing Up Green Charter, is one of only nine charter schools in all of Queens. Almost all of them are independent charter schools started by teachers or religious groups and most of them are in private space.

Home to some of the best traditional public schools in the city, Queens also has some of the most overcrowded schools, leaving little room for charter schools of any kind to squeeze in. Would the city’s charter school office find space for an Astoria branch of the Success Academy if CEO Eva Moskowitz asked? We don’t know yet.

What is known is that almost all of the barriers to entry are higher for mom-and-pop schools than they are for charters that are part of networks. (more…)

The scholarly world was shocked earlier this month by the death of Manning Marable, a mere three days before his life’s work was to finally come out. Others have done a far better job than I ever could of explaining Dr. Marable’s importance as a scholar, activist, and teacher. My hope here is to recount just a little bit of the effect he had on me as my teacher and mentor. More of these stories can be read here.

There have been a number of times in my life where I felt like a fraud. Quite frequently, I wonder if everything that feels like success in my classroom are mere surface victories, hiding more fatal failures beneath them. But never have I felt like more of a fraud than when I began my master’s degree studies at IRAAS: the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University.

There were maybe seven of us starting the program together in the fall of 2005 when all the professors came out to greet us at our first meeting. Each was introduced in turn by Dr. Steven Gregory, the graduate student adviser. The final introduction was of the man sitting in the corner. All the other students seemed star-struck by him, and I looked forward to finding out who he was. But Dr. Gregory merely pointed to him and said, “And of course, he needs no introduction.” Too embarrassed to ask, I had to wait until I got home that night to find out that the man was Manning Marable, and that I had no idea who he was.

Throughout the year, I would learn that I had been welcomed into the presence of one of the most important historians of the black experience in the United States, and undoubtedly one of the top three black historians in the country. But moreover, Dr. Marable was a man deeply rooted in the community and its history, counting amongst his friends not only scholars like Cornell West and Eric Foner, but also activists like Amiri Baraka and Myrlie Evers-Williams, the widow of Medgar Evers. I knew I was lucky to have ended up at IRAAS (and it would turn out to be one of the most important experiences in my life). But as a white boy from Ohio entering a Black Studies program in Harlem, I felt a tad out of place at first, and the fact that I didn’t even know the giant of the field made me feel completely unworthy. (more…)

• Typically laid-back, Dennis Walcott didn’t take a leading role until Cathie Black foundered. (Times)
• More than 500 teachers convicted of crimes in the last five years are still in the classroom. (Post)
• A minority of city charter schools aren’t given public school space and pay rent elsewhere. (Times)
• Teachers at Queens’ Hillcrest High School are changing instruction to meet new standards. (Times)
• Fahari Academy Charter School is trying to expel a first-grader with ADHD for minor offenses. (Post)
• The city has failed to collect $600 million in federal payments for special education. (Post)
• The school janitors accused of billing the city for hours they didn’t work got top reviews. (Daily News)
• The mother of a 7-year-old handcuffed in school last year sued the city and won $30,000. (Daily News)
• On “last in, first out” rules, State Sens. and partners Diane Savino and Jeffrey Klein are split. (Times)
• The Daily News says the state’s inchoate teacher evaluation plan would protect low-rated teachers.
• Chicago’s new schools chief, Jean-Claude Brizard, is well-liked until he isn’t anymore. (Sun-Times)
• Nationally, the need for skilled charter school leaders is outpacing the supply. (Washington Post)
• The card game bridge is catching on among educators who say it’s stimulating and cerebral. (Times)
• Randi Weingarten says countries with the best schools revere teachers, not demonize them. (WSJ)
• A 4-year-old Chicago high school is on probation and is struggling to find a way off of it. (Times)

• A memorial service for special education advocate Dee Alpert is scheduled for May 1. (TS+)
• Teachers support new neuroscience but confuse real findings with “commercial promises.” (Ed Week)
• Why one celebrated math teacher tries to avoid the phrase “real-world learning.” (dy/dan)
• The Wisconsin half of a NYC-Wisconsin teacher collaboration shares, with video. (Mrs. Ripp)
• A Washington State student faked pregnancy as a social experiment. (Yakima Herald via Russo)
• CNN will air a discussion about education including Randi Weingarten on Sunday. (National Journal)
• Rational discussion about what should be done for schools in today’s climate is “nearly impossible.” (Nation)
• A father asks why there isn’t a system in place to use volunteers in phys ed classes. (Insideschools)
• Joel Klein says that obstacles to change include politicians, bureaucrats — then unions. (Reason)
• John Merrow will send signed copies of his The Influence of Teachers to teachers. (Learning Matters)
• Collin Lawrence: Like it or not, Regents exam success requires memorizing facts. (GS Community)

The latest city schools official in the running for a top post outside New York is someone who has kept her name out of the headlines. Cami Anderson did this while overseeing the education of some of the city’s most challenging students: high school drop-outs trying to earn GEDs, students in prison, and others in drug rehabilitation programs.

Anderson is one of two candidates being considered for the job of Newark schools chief, the Star Ledger reported today.

Appointed superintendent of the alternative schools district, known as District 79, in 2006, Anderson immediately began shaking up the schools under her control. She closed the city’s remaining schools for pregnant women, known as P-schools, and overhauled the Department of Education’s programs for students studying for the GED exam. As part of a district-wide reorganization, she helped negotiate a deal with the teachers union that required many District 79 teachers to reapply for their jobs.

Yet despite these changes, Anderson has largely worked out of the public eye.

“People have made a lot of comparisons of her and [former Washington D.C. schools chief] Michelle Rhee,” said someone who worked for Anderson. “Michelle was this very vocal ‘I’m not going to do this with these people anymore’ leader, and Cami really took a different route.” (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.

As the 10th-grade global history teacher at the Brooklyn Arts Academy, the fact that my students would have to pass a Regents exam in my subject as a prerequisite for graduation was never far from my mind. I grew to have a love-hate relationship with this requirement. I liked using the exam to motivate my students and hold them accountable to learning. But at the same time, I found many of the facts assessed by this exam to be arbitrary or trivial.

The Regents Exam in Global History and Geography consists of 50 multiple-choice questions, 12 or so short-answer document based questions, and two essays. A student must score 65 to pass. I typically found that if my students could score 30 out of 50 on the multiple-choice section, they could pass the exam (assuming they wrote both essays). This was no easy task, considering many of my students had low levels of literacy and very little factual knowledge of history or geography to start the year.

Teaching my students the depth and breadth of knowledge necessary to pass this exam was a yearlong process. (Actually, the global history curriculum in New York state covers two years. However, since there were different ninth-grade history teachers in each of the four years I taught at this school, it felt like my responsibility to prepare students for the exam). Before my second year I decided to teach thematically instead of chronologically, anticipating that my students would learn more by studying a few key ideas in-depth than by exposure to a traditional survey approach. This meant I had to choose my themes carefully, so I could introduce many regions and eras under the umbrella of one big idea. My themes included industrialization, imperialism, and human rights, among others. A unit on human rights included content about the Holocaust, apartheid South Africa, and the Rwandan genocide, for example.

For most of the school year, I taught my thematic units using primary and secondary sources and requiring a fair amount of essay writing. I hoped this would prepare them for the essay and document-analysis portions of the Regents exam, and this also best reflected the way I think history should be taught, But for the last six weeks of the school year, I shifted into coach mode and drilled my students on all the facts they might need to know for the multiple-choice section of the test. I designed a program that involved making 15-20 flash cards each week, superficially covering all of the content I didn’t have time for during the rest of the year.

I’ve selected two sample questions to illustrate my issue with the multiple-choice section of the Regents exam. (more…)

• Cami Anderson, a top DOE official, is one of two finalists for superintendent in Newark. (Star-Ledger)
• The head of the controversial Shuang Wen School, Winston Chow, resigned after eight months. (NY1)
• Officials at Chelsea High School are updating the “war board” of students’ graduation statuses. (WNYC)
• A veteran In-Tech Academy teacher says unjustified U-ratings drove her to retire. (Riverdale Press)
• Chancellor Walcott said he would look into the case of the 7-year-old handcuffed during a tantrum. (NY1)
• But Walcott also said that unfortunately, young students must sometimes be restrained. (Daily News)
• The city’s plan for rezoning Lower Manhattan schools has some parents worried. (Downtown Express)
• Delaware has frozen Race to the Top funds to the district run by ex-NYCer Marcia Lyles. (News Journal)
• East Village parents and school leaders are planning a shared green roof and garden. (The Villager)

• A Brooklyn teacher’s open letter to UFT Prez Michael Mulgrew about teacher data reports. (JD2718)
• An adapted nursery rhyme tells the story of Dennis Walcott’s first two weeks as chancellor. (Flypaper)
• The Grassroots Education Movement will premiere its response to “Waiting for ‘Superman.’” (Ed Notes)
• Of the city’s high school admissions process, Miss Eyre asks, “Must it be this way?” (NYC Educator)
• On assisting the Passover seder’s Four Children, when they show up in the classroom. (GS Community)
• The backstory on how Chicago reporters looked into J.C. Brizard — and what they found. (Trib Nation)
• One of Chicago’s two major dailies says Brizard’s accomplishments have been overstated. (Sun-Times)
• A call for more details about Brizard’s two-decade career in New York City’s schools. (Progress Illinois)
• As Brizard leaves Rochester, the first public-school-building charter school moves in. (City Newspaper)
• Three school districts are together piloting implementation of common standards. (Curriculum Matters)
• Andy Rotherham highlights two new under-the-radar studies about teacher quality. (School of Thought)
• A new PBS series about education starts with Diane Ravitch and Cory Booker interviews. (Channel 13)

A few weeks ago, we reported that a KIPP charter school was threatening to fire most of its teachers in an effort to turn the school around. Today, I caught up with one of the teachers, who said that worries about a mass-firing have been calmed by a new principal’s arrival.

According to the teacher, who asked to be anonymous in order to protect her job, teacher morale has improved at the KIPP AMP (Knowledge is Power Program: Always Mentally Prepared) school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Several weeks ago, dispirited teachers said that the majority of their colleagues had been told that they would not have jobs next year.

But since then the school’s new principal, Debon Lewis, has told the staff that he’s looking to improve the staff rather than replace it entirely.

“Now that Debon is stepping up and playing a more active role as a leader people are feeling more comfortable,” the teacher said. “The impression that I get is that people who want to stay are hustling and doing what they have to do to improve.”

Two years ago, concerns about teacher turnover were the driving force behind KIPP AMP teachers’ decision to join the teachers union against the will of the school’s board. A year later teachers opted out of union membership, kicking off a prolonged fight in which the United Federation of Teachers accused KIPP of intimidating teachers who wanted to unionize. (more…)

One of my favorite parts of the Passover seder has always been the discussion of the Four Children. The traditional seder discusses four children — The Wise Son, The Wicked Son, The Simple One, and The One Who Doesn’t Know How to Ask. Each of these sons has his own question, and the haggadah explains the appropriate response for each one. Since entering the classroom, I’ve had my own thoughts about each of these children, and their manifestations in my own classroom.

The Wise Son asks, “What are the laws and statutes by which to fulfill the commandments of Passover?” This son is exalted, because he seeks to learn more about the rituals of Passover. Furthermore, this question is considered wise, because it shows understanding of the story of Passover and seeks deeper meaning from the seder.

A wise child in the classroom hopefully offers the same sort of questioning for the teacher. A wise child is not content with the cursory understanding of a topic or a strategy, but asks for more information. While too many children are willing to absorb knowledge passively without further elucidation, a wise child asks for more.

More often in my classroom, however, it has been the “wicked” child who challenges me as a teacher. The response to The Wicked Son’s question, “What does this ritual mean to you?” has always bothered me. The haggadah instructs us to “set his teeth on edge.” Had this child been alive during the time of the exodus, the haggadah explains, he would not have been redeemed. Harsh.

The haggadah’s interpretation that this child has excluded himself from the community and rejects the tradition of Passover only partially explains the reaction to The Wicked Son’s question. (more…)