GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• The new round of Race to the Top will focus on early childhood and last year’s losers. (Politics K-12)
• A former city charter schools official has decamped to boost schools in Abu Dhabi. (Teachers College)
• Parents parked a school bus at City Hall and invited Mayor Bloomberg to lobby for funding. (EdVox)
• Norm Scott offers a gloss from the left of tomorrow’s charter school rally. (Ed Notes)
• Al Shanker’s widow condemns Joel Klein for hijacking Shanker’s legacy. (Shanker Blog)
• A teacher has drafted a letter to the Regents about the continuing surge in testing. (The Jose Vilson)
• San Diego is trying to identify “quality schools” so it can make more of them. (Voice of San Diego)
• A political scientist says the courts haven’t been effective in improving schools. (School Law Blog)
• A new report says special education needs to be updated for the 21st century. (On Special Ed)
• Nationally, special education identification rates are falling. Not so in New York. (Flypaper)
• For autistic children, sports are challenging but no less fun, a mother writes. (Insideschools)
• Wake County, N.C., is contemplating two ways to integrate schools without using race. Flypaper)

Charter school parents won’t be the only ones taking to the streets tomorrow. Protests are also planned against planned teacher layoffs, a charter school co-location, and low funding for struggling schools.

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio is organizing a “Parent Day of Action” against the city’s 4,100 planned teacher layoffs. Yesterday, de Blasio launched a website featuring videos of parents speaking out against the cuts. Tomorrow, starting in Brooklyn during the morning commute, de Blasio will be joined by parent volunteers to collect anti-layoff testimonials from other New Yorkers at sites throughout the city. The testimonials will be posted in real time to de Blasio’s Twitter and YouTube pages and to his own parent advocacy site, according to spokesman Matthew Wing.

In Manhattan, parents and teachers in the Brandeis High School campus are rallying at 5:30 p.m. against the potential addition of a charter school, Upper West Success Academy. The rally precedes a public hearing about the co-location, which would bring an elementary school into a building that so far has only middle and high school students. The hearing is sure to draw supporters of Upper West Success, one of few schools in Eva Moskowitz’s Success Charter Network that is not named in the UFT-NAACP lawsuit.

And in the Bronx, student activists are planning a half-hour march at the end of their school day to demand that the city use federal funds to help more low-performing schools. The students, from the Urban Youth Collaborative and other groups, are walking to Banana Kelly High School, which the city announced earlier this month would receive new funding and supports, from Samuel Gompers High School, which was not included in the city’s “restart” plans.

Attending one (or more) of tomorrow’s events? Send pictures and comments to tips@gothamschools.org.

Flier faxed today to City Councilman Robert Jackson

The main purpose of a charter school parent rally tomorrow is to demand that the NAACP withdraw from a lawsuit that threatens some charter schools. But not everyone being recruited to the rally is being told that the NAACP is its intended target.

The office of City Councilman Robert Jackson received a fax at 3:33 p.m. that asks elected officials to “support us and come speak at the rally tomorrow.” The fax, whose origin was not identified, says the rally is “to save our schools from the lawsuit” and is signed “Harlem Parents.”

Jackson, who chairs the council’s education committee, is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the UFT and NAACP to stop 22 school closures and prevent 17 charter schools from opening, moving, or expanding.

In fact, more than 1,600 parents have signed on to a letter to the NAACP, according to Kerri Lyon, a spokeswoman for the New York City Charter School Center, which is supporting the rally. “They clearly know who is standing in their way,” Lyon said. (more…)

A group of students from Isaac Newton Middle School screened their spots last night at the Midtown headquarters of advertising giant McCann Erickson (the same company that bought Sterling Cooper two seasons ago on the TV show “Mad Men”).

“Bullying is a topic that is all around the world, so we’re trying to send a message about it,” said Brandon Simmons, a seventh grader. Then he switched to pitch mode: “Our intended audience is students.”

Simmons and his classmates, sixth-graders Genessy Vasquez and Karina Pena, made the commercial in an after-school program, called “Ad Lab,” created by the nonprofit Citizen Schools. (more…)

Flyer outside Harlem Success Academy 1 on Tuesday. (Tony Richards)

Charter school parents and advocates are planning a massive rally tomorrow to demand that the NAACP withdraw from the city teachers union’s school closure lawsuit.

The UFT is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit to halt 22 school closures and prevent 17 charter schools from opening, moving, or expanding. But the New York State Conference of the NAACP also signed on, as it did last year to a similar suit that ultimately blocked 19 school closures. Last year’s suit did not challenge the city’s charter school co-location plans.

Organizers expect the rally to draw thousands of attendees from dozens of charter schools, including all 17 named in the lawsuit, to 125 Street in Harlem at 8:45 a.m. Thursday. At least some schools are delaying classes to allow parents, teachers, and students to attend.

Critics of the lawsuit “can march and have rallies all day long,” said Hazel Dukes, president of the state NAACP chapter. “We will not respond.”

Dukes said she joined the lawsuit for the same reason that the NAACP brought the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which ended “separate but equal” schooling based on race. “Co-location is not the answer,” Dukes said. “We are setting up separate and unequal education.”

But city officials and charter school advocates say the civil rights group is working to stymie school options that would benefit mostly minority students. (more…)

• The playground fire at PS 29 reveals tension between neighborhood public and private schools. (Times)
• The daughter of an Indian diplomat is suing over her arrest at John Bowne HS. (Daily News, Post, NY1)
• A ex-DOE exec hired friends from Bear Stearns for personal use. (Times, WSJ, Post, NY1, Daily News)
• Brooklyn’s Hebrew Language Academy charter school is diverse and doing well. (Village Voice)
• Most teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve work regular school jobs. (GothamSchools)
• Chancellor Walcott is part of a bid to integrate the city’s jobs programs, including for teens. (Crain’s NY)
• Tom Allon calls on the city to reinstate a program meant to build diversity at elite schools. (Daily News)
• In Chicago, Jean-Claude Brizard is inheriting a system full of fiscal and other woes. (Chicago Tribune)
• Nationwide, public schools are increasingly charging fees for class and club participation. (WSJ)
• New Jersey’s Supreme Court ordered lawmakers to increase school funding by $500 million. (Times)