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Success Charter Network 2009 lottery. (GothamSchools Flickr)

Excerpt from sneak peek of "Ultimate Spider-Man" #1, via Comic Book Resources.

According to a new comic book, one of the children who needed Superman to lift him out of subpar schools was a young Spider-Man.

In a new “Ultimate Spider-Man” series launching next month, the inheritor of the Spider-Man mantle is Miles Morales, a half-black, half-Hispanic Brooklyn-born teenager. A sneak peek shows a young boy accompanying his parents to what appears to be a charter school lottery, held in a cavernous space with video screens at one end and bleachers along the sides.

Down to the balloon arches flanking the seats, the arrangement closely resembles that of Success Charter Network’s 2009 lottery, held in the Harlem Armory in front of thousands of people. The carefully orchestrated event was depicted in the documentary “The Lottery” but was later dropped in favor of a lower-key drawing held out of the public eye.

The preview suggests but does not make clear that the young Spider-Man is selected for admission. The excerpt shows him sitting with his parents and looking worried, then zooms in on the number 42 after it is drawn in the lottery. The family members’ eyes widen, and then Spider-Man, with tears welling, gets a hug from his mother.

• Penn. officials halved the number of Philadelphia schools needing cheating investigations. (Inquirer)
• More than 100 schools in Los Angeles are piloting a tougher teacher evaluation system. (L.A. Times)
• The city’s Panel for Educational Policy is often asked to vote on contracts it hasn’t seen. (GothamSchools)
• Donors allow the Armory Foundation to give track coaching and study help to city students. (WSJ)
• The Daily News praises the legal decision that allowed Upper West Success to open as planned.
• In a survey, New Jersey’s superintendents panned the state’s education department. (Times, Spotlight)

• A Navy commander and crew members were fired over cheating detected aboard their submarine. (AP)
• A teacher says he rejects the pity his neighbors offer him when they find out where he works. (Mr Foteah)
• A former Hollywood agent’s new charter school is opening this week in Los Angeles. (Media Decoder)
• Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now running for president, opposes Obama’s education policies. (Answer Sheet)
• Teachers Unite is offering a three-day workshop next week for teachers to learn to organize. (Ed Notes)
• Creighton Davis describes his students’ evolving relationship to summer reading. (GS Community)
• One teacher’s packed to-do list for the first few days of school, shared as inspiration. (Mrs. Ripp)
• What a teacher would have written after TFA training 20 years ago if he’d had a blog. (Gary Rubinstein)
• Rebutting higher education’s skepticism about early college high schools. (The Quick and the Ed)
• Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel surprised principals today by telling them they’ll get merit pay. (CNC)

On Wednesday, members of the Panel for Educational Policy will vote on several controversial Department of Education contracts totaling millions of dollars.

But the panel’s 13 members won’t be able to see the details of the contracts, which the DOE cannot finalize without their approval.

Department officials said this state of affairs is typical.

The DOE provides panel members with various parts of the contracts being drafted if available, but often contracts up for approval are still under negotiation when the panel members vote, DOE officials said.

Panel members who believe they received insufficient information about a deal may vote against it.

“No” is how Patrick Sullivan, the Manhattan borough president’s PEP appointee, said he plans to vote on Wednesday, when two high-profile contracts are up for approval: a $120 million two-year deal with Verizon Wireless, and contracts of roughly $1.5-3.5 million each over three years with six ”restart partners” — nonprofit Education Partnership Organizations set to take over operations at 14 struggling schools.

“They’re definitely putting the cart before the horse,” Sullivan said. “Approval is pretty much expected. They want the panel to approve in advance what they intend to do, and they will decide the details and specifics.” (more…)

When David Steiner announced his resignation as commissioner of the State Education Department, people close to him speculated that he was burnt out by trying to push his agenda through.

In an interview posted today with Rick Hess, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Steiner describes the thoughts that led to his decision.

“There is an enormous investment in the status quo, even from those you would think have an incentive for change,” Steiner told Hess. “… Sometimes, I would look out from the offices in Albany and ask where the allies were.”

Steiner’s complaint reflects divisions among state education officials documented by Michael Winerip in today’s New York Times. Some officials — such as Steiner’s successor, John King, and Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch — favor speedy policy changes in line with federal priorities. Others are urging a more cautious pace.

Now returning to Hunter College’s School of Education, Steiner told Hess that his biggest accomplishment as commissioner was to change certification requirements for new teachers. And he also said he is not confident that plans to boost test quality will pay off. “It’s still an open question whether the next generation of assessments will really match our aspiration to encourage rigorous, deep thinking rather than the rote-like product from the testing regime,” Steiner said.

When I announced to my three classes during the second week of June that they would be responsible for reading two books over the course of the summer, a riot nearly ensued. Amidst the cacophony of groans, deep sighs, and loud complaints, I was the recipient of a populist anger not seen since the Grinch was around stealing Christmas. In fact, I was charged with a similar crime: stealing summer and forcing my students into the no-fun zone of intellectual hard labor.

With summer reading assignments of my own a less-than-distant memory, I chose the two books with empathy to the agony my students would surely endure if assigned a pair of less than captivating novels. Thus, I was genuinely excited about my choices of “Copper Sun” by Sharon Draper and “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins, and assumed my students would be as well, which paved the way for either a huge letdown or an epic battle of wills. I presented the novels to my students with great fanfare and as I responded, first calmly, to the barrage of attacks with statistics on summer learning loss and the importance to prepare for high school, I lost my cool when a student defiantly declared that I could not make him read in the first place and that he could choose not to read at all. A battle of wills was at hand.

As I hurled threats towards him of serious academic consequences such as failing the summer reading test and hurting his chances at a good grade, I was most frustrated by the truth in his statement. I really could not force him or any other student to read. As a teacher that strongly cares for his students, thinking that their minds going to waste over the next two months was agonizing for me. That was the real reason behind assigning summer reading in the first place — to prevent the learning loss that typically afflicts low-income students during the summer time because of limited exposure to activities, resources, and experiences that would provide academic stimulation. I feared all the progress we made over the course of the year would evaporate as quickly as water spilled on burning pavement during a hot summer day. I had witnessed this phenomenon before with this same group of students as they returned to school after the previous summer. Those that participated in an enrichment program I offered at my school were adequately prepared for the rigors and expectations of seventh grade, while those that languished by the poolside or in front of the television returned mentally sluggish and in poor condition to begin the yearlong academic marathon that would follow.

Although I may have suffered an initial defeat in the war of summer reading, I would not be overcome by my students’ intransigence. (more…)

• Michael Winerip: New York’s Regents are split on the state’s school reform agenda and strategy. (Times)
• The state’s contract with Pearson for new state tests to start in 2012 calls for fewer trick questions. (TImes)
• Five city high schools are flagged on a state list as having suspicious scores. (Post, Daily News, NY1)
• A judge ruled that Upper West Success Academy can open as planned. (DNAInfo, NY1, WSJ, City Room)
• A planned $120 million city schools contract with Verizon is under attack for several reasons. (Daily News)
• Kim Bruno, principal of LaGuardia High School, turned down a job offer in Los Angeles. (L.A. Times)
• Community organizations say most of their parents seem to support the new sex-ed mandate. (WSJ)
• Energy consumption in city schools is down 11 percent since 2008, part of a national trend. (WSJ)
• The Post says last week’s charter school scores should convince the UFT and NAACP to drop their suit.
• Stanley Crouch: The scores show that charters have the best chance of helping needy kids. (Daily News)
• Steven Brill: School reform’s pace sadly offers little choice between a sprint and the status quo. (WSJ)
• As the private Grace Church School adds a high school, it is reworking its curriculum, too. (WSJ)
• In addition to offering waivers, the Obama administration is less often enforcing NCLB’s terms. (Times)
• Parents and teachers are demanding a bigger role in crafting Chicago’s schools budget. (Times)
• Chicago’s teachers union president said a strike was likely before dialing down her rhetoric. (Sun-Times)
• Race to the Top has Delaware is adding data coaches in each of its school districts. (News Journal)

• Charter schools facing growth challenges see opportunity in New York’s charter-friendliness. (EdWeek)
• The case against the state’s teacher evaluations was in court today; the state had no comment. (NYSUT)
• A Chicago teacher explains what an NCLB waiver would mean to him: not much. (Gapers Block)
• A critique of an upcoming NYTimes panel on the future of schools: Where are the teachers? (Jose Vilson)
• If you’ve ever wanted to be a Parent Access Knowledge Analyst, now’s your chance. (Simply Hired)
• A Q&A with Peg Tyre, whose new book is about the way parents should and do pick schools. (Hechinger)
• Dana Lawit on the thrill of teaching summer school: It’s one part joy, one part rush. (GS Community)
• An outspoken parent lists the test-score data points that Mayor Bloomberg didn’t broadcast. (EdVox)
• City students helped produce a TV piece about their “dropout factory” high schools. (PBS NewsHour)
• Tom Allon, the local media magnate who is running for mayor, has hired a top fundraiser. (City Room)
• Rapidfire investigations into test scores at some Philadelphia schools will finish Monday. (Notebook)
• Republican presidential hopefuls targeted No Child Left Behind during last night’s debate. (Politics K-12)

Hundreds of principals who objected to their initial budget funding last month will learn today if their appeals were successful.

An unusually high number of principals filed official appeals of their budgets this year, some requesting hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional funding. They said the third consecutive year of budget cuts would have forced them to cut vital staff members, they explained in their appeals.

It’s not clear how many of the 253 principals will have funding restored, or even where all of the money will come from. Last year, the Department of Education spent $23 million from a centrally-funded emergency pool to restore money to about two-thirds of the 166 schools that filed appeals.

Principals are getting emails with the results of their appeals today, according to Barbara Morgan, a DOE spokeswoman. But at least one principal said he’s already been told his appeal was successful.

Joe Nobile, a principal whose budget plight we wrote about last month, said initial funding allocated for his school, P.S. 304, “was not enough to run the school effectively.” He would have had to replace seven staff members.

But thanks to his appeal, Nobile said he will be able to keep most of those staff members — a teacher, three school aides, and one paraprofessionals  — in the school. He’s still losing two special education teachers, he said.

Principals have to ask themselves a lot of questions during the school year, not all of them related to what goes on in classrooms.

Did I distribute and collect required Medicaid forms and conduct monthly safety committee meetings? Did I complete surveys on arts education and bilingual students on time? Did I create a recycling plan?

The Principal Compliance Checklist is the roadmap principals use to keep track of these questions. Test scores drive much of principals’ annual performance reviews, but items on the 50-item compliance checklist, regarding everything from conducting fire-drills to reporting school-related crime, count for a crucial 10 percent.

The checklist, published below, is mostly comprised of items that principals will accomplish over the normal course of running their schools, according to the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, the principals’ union. But it also offers a peek at the administrative duties that keep principals busy and, according to some, take time away from classroom instruction, teacher evaluation and professional development.

“A lot of the stuff is just accounting,” a Bronx principal said. ”It’s not high-level critical thinking stuff, which is what I’d prefer to be working on.”

The list can be a challenge to get through without delegating to an assistant principal or other school staff, the principal said. “Have I signed stuff that I haven’t read fully? To be honest, yes.”  (more…)