GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• A UFT analysis finds that newer schools graduate more students, but with less preparation. (Edwize)
• Teachers are often held to a higher standard of public behavior than others. Should they be? (Mrs. Ripp)
• City Council Ed Committee Chair Robert Jackson is eying a run for Manhattan president. (Politicker)
• Obama touted corporations’ role in schools and the economic argument for reform. (Politics K12)
• A Bronx teacher explains his path to protest and why he’ll be marching in D.C. this month. (Jose Vilson)
• It’s tiredness — not from hard work, but from assaults — motivating another marcher. (Gary Rubenstein)
• Extracting the best and worst Bronx principals from this year’s Learning Environment Surveys. (JD2718)
• In 1998, teachers unions already saw disparate views about the labor movement within their ranks. (EIA)
• The school research landscape is consolidating as CALDER and AIR merge. (Inside School Research)
• New York is one of the states that will compete for the early-learning Race to the Top. (Eduwonk)
• Speaking of early childhood, New York City is overhauling publicly funded daycares. (GS)

The full impact of the city’s short-lived experiment in teacher performance pay could still be felt.

The Department of Education confirmed today that it has ended a three-year-old school-wide bonus program that was called “transcendant” when it was introduced. The decision, spurred by a RAND Corporation report that was commissioned by the Department of Education’s private fundraising wing, follows a previous study that found no performance boost for participating schools. We reported in March that the city had quietly suspended the bonus program.

(Read the complete RAND report.)

The city will save money this year by not disbursing the bonuses, which it says cost $56 million over the life of the initiative. (The previous report, which the city did not commission, put the costs even higher, at $75 million.)

But the long-term effect could come from a pension sweetener introduced to get the teachers union on board with the controversial program. Then-UFT President Randi Weingarten hinged her support for the bonus program on a change in the law that would allow teachers to retire early, starting at 55 instead of 62, without taking a hit to their pensions. (more…)

At the West Side Collaborative, a small middle school on the Upper West Side, teachers relish being in two places at once.

Their freedom from the time-space continuum is made possible by the school’s use of Google applications to let teachers share resources online. The tools, showcased in a video the school produced, last week won Principal Jeanne Rotunda the Elizabeth Rohatyn Prize for School Innovation from Teaching Matters, a nonprofit that helps schools integrate technology. (more…)

Students at the Stagg Street Center for Children

On a recent morning at Stagg Street Center for Children, in Williamsburg, a class of 4-year-olds put up an abstract, angular structure in the first-floor art gallery. The were inspired by Louise Nevelson’s “Sky Cathedral,” which they had seen on a recent trip to MOMA. Later, that same class sculpted in clay with a visiting artist, while a portable kiln warmed up behind them.

For more than four decades, Larry Provette, Stagg Street’s director, has provided rich, arts-focused experiences for low-income children in his neighborhood. But he fears that Stagg Street might not be around much longer.

That’s because a city initiative to boost early childhood education is requiring every publicly funded daycare center, from mom-and-pop operations working out of apartments to larger centers housed in city facilities, to prove that they are worthy of city funding. Directors welcomed the news late last week that their deadline to do so has been pushed back a month, to Sept. 12.

That deadline is for the first step in an ambitious overhaul, called EarlyLearn, of the city’s public daycare system. Under EarlyLearn, the city’s 647 daycare programs and family care networks, which together served 51,766 children in 2010-2011, will have to meet higher academic and developmental standards starting in 2013. By September, all programs must reapply for approval from the Administration for Children’s Services, which funds and oversees them. The proposals must describe each center’s existing programs and outline how they will be updated to meet the new standards. ACS and the Department of Education, which will help review applications, plan to announce which centers will receive new contracts in March 2012. (more…)

• A look into the negotiations to avert teacher layoffs reveals an uncommon level of chaos. (Times)
• The Department of Education canceled its suspended teacher bonus program. (Times, Daily News)
• The DOE is spending $2 million to conduct a family involvement survey this month. (Daily News)
• A city-union deal will bring federal aid to some schools. (GothamSchools, Times, Post, Daily News)
• But union officials want more time before expanding the teacher evaluation deal to more schools. (GS)
• Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s promises, some city schools will continue to use dirty heating oil. (NY1)
• Some city summer school teachers are discussing now-legal gay marriage in their classes. (Post)
• Bloomberg said parents can use cell phones — banned in schools — to track their kids. (Daily News)
• Atlanta’s former schools chief, Beverly Hall, seems to have aided in covering up cheating. (Times)
• The Times says cheaters should be removed from schools, not the tests that put pressure on them.
• Los Angeles is revising its social promotion ban to focus on helping struggling students. (L.A. Times)
• As the NewsCorp scandal snowballs, a look at whether Joel Klein can clean up the company. (Reuters)
• The newest frontier for charter schools is in suburbs with high-performing public schools. (Times)

• Five percent of D.C. teachers were fired today because of low student test scores. (D.C. Schools Insider)
• Details about what’s being discussed in top-secret negotiations on NCLB flexibility. (Politics K-12)
• A gadfly gives Rahm Emanuel a T after 6 weeks as Chicago’s mayor, for “tormenting teachers.” (Reader)
• A city teacher lists four things she wishes she had done differently last year. (Miss Brave)
• A suburban principal got a call from Arne Duncan to talk about the dangers of testing. (Answer Sheet)
• A California law requires charter schools to reflect their communities demographically. (BET)
• Economist Eric Hanushek: California’s budget strategy, to cut school time, is the worst. (Education Next)
• A “wince-worthy” look at a new version of “The Great Gatsby” for today’s students. (Core Knowledge)
• A Philadelphia teacher who didn’t witness cheating reflects on his city’s growing scandal. (Notebook)

Today’s partial teacher evaluation deal shows that the city and teachers union can reach an understanding on one of the thorniest issues they face right now. That’s good, because they have more negotiating to do.

Today’s agreement applies only to the 33 schools that are set to receive federal funding to help them improve, not to the nearly 1,500 other schools operated by the city Department of Education. The city and union haven’t even started discussing how evaluations should be done in those schools, according to UFT President Michael Mulgrew.

Federal authorities didn’t require any teacher evaluation commitments, but the State Education Department told the city in May it wouldn’t forward the city’s application for improvement funds without a teacher evaluation plan. At the time, city officials accused the state of trying to “change the ground rules” by using the $65 million in federal funds as a carrot to get them talking about evaluations. But ultimately the worry of missing out on the windfall in a tight budget year propelled the city and union to follow the state’s instructions.

In the course of hammering out a limited agreement, the city and union established that teachers have the right to a meeting with their principal to discuss the observations. That had been a sticking point in negotiations this spring.

“We have all come to an understanding that it is important to have a verbal discussion, especially if it will help them help children,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said. (more…)

After months of negotiations, the city and teachers union announced a deal today on a set of reforms that will allow the state to claim millions of dollars promised to struggling schools.

The announcement comes a week after the state ramped up pressure on the city to finalize its plans for how to improve its lowest-performing schools. The state’s deadline to complete its application for federal School Improvement Grants is just two weeks away. New York City is eligible for up to $65 million to help 33 “persistently low-achieving” schools undergo one of four processes over the next two years.

The 33 schools will undergo one of two revamp options, “restart” and “transformation,” according to the agreement. Those models are the least aggressive and also the least objectionable for the teachers union: They do not involve removing teachers or asking them to reapply for their jobs. “Restart” assigns a new management organization, and “transformation” replaces the principal and brings in additional resources.

Decisions about which model each of the 33 schools on the list would undergo will be made “over the next week,” according to the city’s press release. Last year, 11 city schools underwent the “transformation” process, and nine schools are undergoing the restart process this fall.

The city’s press release is long on relief but short on specifics other than that the city and union have agreed to implement the state’s new teacher evaluation model — but only in the 33 struggling schools. (more…)

When the first graduates of Green Dot Charter High School move on to college next year, the school’s founder is hoping to manage two more schools in the Bronx.

Steve Barr’s renamed organization, Future is Now Schools, is planning to take over a middle school and a high school in the South Bronx in fall 2012. But unlike in Green Dot’s model, Future is Now wants the two schools to remain district schools, not become charter schools.

That model, which the group announced in March, still requires complicated negotiations over teacher contracts, and especially teacher evaluations, where the city and Future is Now differ greatly. For now, FIN is growing its staff, developing curriculum, and continuing its three-way negotiations with the UFT and the city.

“We’ve made good progress and have come to a general agreement on the form of an evaluation system that is based on Green Dot’s,” said Gideon Stein, FIN’s president. “The difficulty has been all of the other priorities that the DOE and the city have.”

FIN’s most recent hire strengthens the group’s alignment with one of the DOE’s top priorities: Pushing models that blend online and in-person instruction through the two-year-old Innovation Zone. This week, Barr brought on Daniel Gohl, who was previously in charge of innovation efforts in Newark’s public school system, as the company’s chief academic officer. (more…)

• Critics want the state to reconsider its contract with Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation. (Daily News)
• The DOE’s internal budget documents suggest that 9 percent of students failed state tests. (NY1)
• After money dried up and interest waned, Tom Vander Ark backed out of his city charter school. (Times)
• Parents surveyed said disabled students were included less in school activities last year. (Daily News)
• Local media mogul Tom Allon is running for mayor and making education a focus. (GothamSchools)
• Inspired by his students’ high Regents scores, a Long Island teacher played the lottery and won. (Post)
• A controversial mandate that schools teach gay and lesbian history became law in California. (Times, AP)
• Illinois officials hope new Race to the Top funds will make up for cuts from the education budget. (Times)