GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Firing Cathie Black didn’t boost Mayor Bloomberg’s numbers; Walcott’s still unknown. (Metropolis)
• A rundown of ways to protest teacher layoffs, both online and in the streets, tomorrow. (Insideschools)
• City Council ed committee chair Robert Jackson: Bloomberg’s budget cuts will be long-lasting. (EdVox)
• Bel Kaufman, author of the classic teacher-lit “Up the Down Staircase,” is still dancing at 100. (Times)
• The Democracy Prep charter school once known as Harlem Day got 1,100+ applications. (DNAinfo)
• Happy first birthday (next week) to the politically charged acronym “LIFO.” (Dana Goldstein)
• Journalists will meet at Columbia this weekend to talk about how foundations affect reporting. (Russo)
• Jay Mathews confesses that he finds the battle over common standards to be “a big bore.” (WaPo)
• Liza Campbell on the exciting arrival of a new film that rebuts “Waiting for ‘Superman.’” (GS Community)
• More background on the making of the movie, whose premiere is already fully booked. (Ed Notes)
• A teacher reports an unlikely reason for “finally getting the round of applause.” (Pissed Off Teacher)
• A DOE instructional coach, Kaitlin Seaver, is Girls Prep Charter School’s new principal. (The Local)
• Checker Finn says layoffs’ impact on teacher quality, not class size, is the big issue. (Daily News)
• A city teacher who was recruited last summer is leaving before being laid off. (The Reflective Educator)

In April, Cynthia Rosario picked up a copy of the New York Times Magazine and began reading its cover story, which chronicled the challenges of a South Bronx middle school and its driven principal.

The story talked about M.S. 223′s rising test scores, its extraordinarily challenging students, and how its staff of young, but committed teachers was steadily improving. But all that progress was threatened, the school’s principal Ramon Gonzalez believed, by the city’s plans to open a charter school in the building next year. His building was already nearing capacity and handing the remaining space to a new school would jeopardize his plan to expand into a high school.

“I kept reading thinking, ‘Oh no,’” Rosario said, just waiting to see her school’s name mentioned in the role of the villain.

A year ago, when Rosario applied to open a charter school in the South Bronx, she entered the city’s opaque space-search process, which nearly pitted her against a high-quality school. When she began, she never imagined the city’s Department of Education would look to a school like M.S. 223 for space. (more…)

A month after taking over a Department of Education hemorrhaging its leadership, Chancellor Dennis Walcott today announced a slew of high-level appointments.

For two deputy chancellor slots, Walcott turned to veteran educators who made their careers in the city schools.

David Weiner, a one-time city principal who is currently Philadelphia’s chief accountability officer, will become deputy chancellor for talent, labor, and innovation. In that position, he will manage hot-button issues including labor relations and the city’s Innovation Zone of schools experimenting with technology. The founding principal of PS 503 in Brooklyn, Weiner succeeds John White, who took over the Recovery School District in New Orleans at the beginning of May.

A 30-year veteran of the city school system, Dorita Gibson will take on a newly created position, deputy chancellor for equity and access. She will supervise District 79, the network of alternative schools previously headed by Cami Anderson, who was named Newark’s next schools chief last week. District 79 will still get a new superintendent, according to DOE spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz.

Gibson will also lead initiatives that “focus on ending long-standing racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities and directing supports to communities most in need,” according to the city’s press release. Some of those initiatives previously fell under the purview of Santiago Taveras, the deputy chancellor for engagement who departed for the private sector earlier this year.

The appointments signal that Walcott is moving to stabilize the department, which has experienced rapid leadership change at the top since ex-Chancellor Joel Klein left at the end of last year. They also confirm Walcott’s intention to continue policies established during Klein’s tenure while also asserting new priorities. (more…)

What can a small group of committed individuals do to affect change in a very large and complicated system like the public schools? This is a question that activists ask ourselves regularly as we come together to try to address various issues in education, and the ideas that come out of these meetings have varying levels of impact. Unfortunately, most of these groups have little to no funding and are limited in numbers, which means that the plethora of good ideas far exceed what we are capable of pulling together. This is especially frustrating when we are also trying to do the educating, organizing, and mobilizing that our well-funded union, the United Federation of Teachers, should be doing.

Of course, each idea is different and is intended to address different goals. Fight Back Fridays, for example, are intended to mobilize school communities to fight the attacks on public education and take back the dialogue surrounding “reform.” Members of a NYCORE action group are hoping that a summer speaker series will help to interrupt the inculcation that comes with alternative certification teacher training and expose our newest teachers to some important historical knowledge they may be lacking. The members of the Grassroots Education Movement have been working to support schools fighting charter co-location, which has included organizing for and turning out to myriad public meetings.

But on a larger scale, how can we possibly compare to the well-financed corporate reformers whose preferred policies have dominated the national agenda in recent years? The documentary “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” for example, which pushes privately managed charter schools as the silver-bullet answer to education’s problems and teachers unions as the enemy, was underwritten by individuals and foundations whose net worth is in the billions of dollars. The movie received an astounding amount of hype. As educators and parents organizing a grassroots campaign to fight these privatization tactics, it sometimes feels like we have little to no chance to counter the message these corporate reformers are pushing.

But it’s amazing what a group of committed educators and parents can do with almost no resources, a good idea, and a video camera. The Grassroots Education Movement has created a response to “Waiting for ‘Superman,’” that challenges some of the most blatant lies and over-simplications the movie presents. In “The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman,” parents share horror stories of “winning a lottery” but being told that the charter school that their child won access to would not be able to accommodate their special education needs. The movie is full of facts and statistics that are paired with parent and teacher anecdotes, and together the two create a powerful framework for better understanding the realities of privatization here in New York City and nationally. (more…)

• Mayor Bloomberg indicated that teacher salaries are a main target in union negotiations. (Post)
• Layoffs would likely cause the city to lose young teachers full of idealism. (Times)
• Public Advocate Bill de Blasio launched a website where parents can lobby against layoffs. (Daily News)
• The DOE gave 23 new schools with low enrollment $236,000 in extra funds to close budget gaps. (Post)
• After the election debacle, officials want more oversight of parent councils. (GS, NY1, Daily News)
• School overcrowding is most acute in some neighborhoods of Queens. (Times, Daily News)
• Louisiana’s top schools official, Paul Pastorek, is leaving for the aerospace industry. (Times-Picayune)
• President Obama will give the graduation address at Booker T. Washington HS in Memphis, Tenn. (AP)
• The Times says N.J. Gov. Chris Christie’s threat to reject court rulings on school funding is irresponsible.
• Schools are eliminating senior superlatives because of possible long-term impact on recipients. (WSJ)