GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Teacher Christian Ledesma leads his running group at P.S. 244, one of four schools to win a national fitness award.

City children have shed pounds faster than children anywhere else, according to five years of health data released today.

Mayor Bloomberg brought Chancellor Dennis Walcott and a team of commissioners and elected officials to P.S. 218 in the Bronx to announce, over the cafeteria salad bar, that obesity rates among elementary and middle school students have declined in the last half-decade. They touted an array of recent efforts to boost students’ health.

But the Centers for Disease Control, which identified the trend, said it could not say that interventions in schools had driven the decline in obesity.

In the 2006-2007 school year, 21.9 percent of children in kindergarten through eighth grade were obese. Last year, that figure was 20.7 percent. In contrast, according to the CDC, children’s obesity rates are stagnant nationally.

The decrease spanned all racial and economic groups, but obesity rates for black and Hispanic children fell by less, according to the CDC, which released the data in its weekly report today. And still, one in five New York City children is considered obese. (more…)

Protesters opposing Department of Education proposals brandished hand puppets before the Panel for Educational Policy.

In the start of what has become an annual ritual, the Panel for Educational Policy Wednesday night listened to hours of rowdy public comments opposing the city’s policy of placing charter schools inside existing school buildings, then signed off on plans to do just that.

The panel gave the go-ahead to a Success Charter school co-location in Cobble Hill in Brooklyn, an affluent neighborhood where many parents and elected officials have said the school is not wanted.

Panel members Gbubemi Okotieuro, of Brooklyn, and Patrick Sullivan, of Manhattan, each raised issues about the co-location plan for the Success Charter school, which did not originally apply to open in the area.

Marc Sternberg, the Department of Education official in charge of new schools, said the department had determined the neighborhood had experienced an “explosion of kindergarten enrollment” and needed more elementary schools.

“It was made clear to us by SUNY that the charter school could be opened in District 15,” Sternberg said, referring to the state organization that authorizes charter schools, which approved the Success Academy school for nearby District 13 or 14.

Sullivan was the only panel member to vote against any of the plans, casting a “no” vote on the Cobble Hill c0-location and abstaining from several other votes.

The panel also approved plans to open a charter high school in the old Boys High School building and a second Success charter school in P.S. 59, both in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. It also signed off on a plan to expand Esperanza Preparatory Academy, a dual-language school in East Harlem that shares a building with a citywide gifted school, TAG Young Scholars, whose parents had opposed the change. (more…)

• Less than half of schools nationally failed under NCLB, not 82 percent like Arne Duncan said. (Times)
• As expected, the Panel for Educational Policy okayed two charter co-locations. (Times, NY1, Daily News)
• Not on the agenda: co-locations for schools that aimed to be where Eva Moskowitz’s is. (GothamSchools)
• A poll finds increased disapproval for Chancellor Walcott’s performance. (GothamSchools, Daily News)
• The comptroller rejected a big DOE custodial contract. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook, Daily News, Post)
• The elite Brearley School for girls chose a new head from a boarding school in Massachusetts. (Times)
• A rapper will head a Bronx charter schools fundraising committee and other Bronx news. (Daily News)
• At P.S. 277 in the Bronx, teachers and staff are excited to have a new lease on life. (WNYC/SchoolBook)
• Some Lower Manhattanites are still pushing back against a District 2 rezoning plan. (Downtown Express)
• Protests derailed a school board meeting about school closures and overhauls in Chicago. (Tribune)

• We’ll be updating as long as the human mic holds up from tonight’s PEP meeting. (GS Twitter)
• In the last three years, Medicaid has overtaken schools as the biggest recipient of state funding. (Times)
• Lincoln Center is the latest arts organization to step into the school partnerships world. (Metrofocus)
• Brooklyn parents say their ongoing involvement has helped their schools improve. (Gotham Gazette)
• The city’s charter school center is starting an anti-bullying campaign and website. (CyberBullyCensus)
• A Chicago politician used zoning to block a charter school from an Emanuel-aligned nonprofit. (CNC)
• A black football star is raising up not-buried feelings at a Virginia segregation academy. (WaPo, Atlantic)
• EdWeek scrutinizes the 11 No Child Left Behind waiver applications already submitted. (Politics K-12)
• A hard look at whether the Obama administration can deliver on its promise to cut college debt. (HuffPo)
• And a reminder that if you like what GothamSchools does, you can support us in doing it!

A day after taking aim at inflated food costs at the Department of Education, Comptroller John Liu blocked the city from paying more for custodial services.

In an uncommon move, Liu rejected a $65 million contract with Temco Service Industries today, saying the DOE had not justified a 44 price hike when applying to renew a contract with the Bronx provider of cleaning and maintenance services.

Since at least 2007, the department had paid Temco $45 million annually for its services. Liu said the department had not explained an additional $20 million tacked on to the contract extension.

“With budget deficits still looming, contracts with huge inexplicable cost increases and other outstanding questions simply cannot be green-lighted,” he said in a statement.  “An extra $20 million on top of $45 million is an enormous amount of money.”

DOE officials said Liu had not alerted them to his concerns before he issued a press release rejecting the contract today. (more…)

In a school sweatshirt, Chancellor Dennis Walcott congratulates WHEELS seniors as they approach the local post office.

When William Taveras approached the Washington Bridge Post Office on West 180th Street, college applications in hand, with whoops and applause from hundreds of classmates in the background, it was a step toward a goal he set five years ago.

As a member of the first class of sixth-graders at the Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School, Taversas said he often heard founding principal Brett Kimmel tell students his main objective was to get everyone into college.

Kimmel brought Taveras’s cohort a few steps closer to that goal today, when all 76 seniors marched the three blocks from their Upper Manhattan school to the post office that would mail their transcripts and applications to universities.

Each student was required to apply to CUNY and SUNY colleges, and some said they were applying to other schools as well. WHEELS — which lists “high-dose” tutoring as one of its strategies to build college readiness — required each student to apply to a minimum of six colleges. (more…)

By the end of tonight’s Panel for Educational Policy meeting, Eva Moskowitz’s new Success Academy charter school is virtually assured of having a home next fall in Brownstone Brooklyn. For another charter school that, unlike Moskowitz’s, had applied to open there, the future is less certain.

The charter school that the Department of Education has proposed siting in District 15 was originally authorized to open in nearby District 13 or District 14, but in an unusual move, the city altered the plan.

Meanwhile, the department has not yet proposed locations for two charter schools approved for District 15, and a founder of one of them says she isn’t optimistic that her school will open in the area.

The Brooklyn Urban Garden School, a mom-and-pop charter middle school founded by a group of parents and educators who live in District 15, applied for public space when its charter application was approved in August. But there were only two school buildings in the district with enough space for new schools and co-founder Susan Tenner said she doesn’t expect BUGS to be offered space in either of them.

As a result, she said she’s unsure if the school, which has an environmental theme, can afford to open for the 2012-2013 school year.

“We’re still shooting for August, but we’re kind of in a tough spot until we’ve signed a lease,” Tenner said.

One option the school might have: To open in District 13, where there is more available school space and fewer high-performing schools — and where Moskowitz originally proposed siting her school. (more…)

The standing-room only audience at New York French American Charter School's meeting for the board of trustees and parents.

Parents at a Harlem charter school that’s on probation got what they wanted Tuesday night: The chair of their board resigned.

The resignation took place just minutes into a meeting of the Board of Trustees for New York French American Charter School, the year-old the city put on probation last week because of “serious violations” of its charter and state law. It drew cheers from the standing-room only audience.

Many of the roughly 50 parents who packed a small classroom on the school’s second floor said they had never been to a board meeting before but were anxious about how the board would resolve the school’s administrative woes. Those woes included a lack of communication among board members, parents, and school staff.

Now, parents say they expect communications to improve after the board elected Fabrice Rouah, a financial analyst, to be acting chair.

“He looks at everything with a fresh pair of eyes,” said Claire Zaglauer, who was recently elected president of the school’s brand-new parent-teacher organization. Zaglauer said the board appears poised to add multiple new members in the coming weeks.

Celestin’s resignation “sent a strong signal that the board is willing to take responsibility for the current crisis,” Rouah said in a statement today. “The board’s commitment to the school is stronger than ever, as is our resolve to get the probation lifted.” (more…)

Eight months on the job has done little to boost Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott’s image in the eye of New Yorkers.

A Quinnipiac poll released today shows Walcott’s approval rating as essentially unchanged since he became chancellor in April. But his disapproval rating is way up.

According to the poll, 33 percent of New Yorkers approve of Walcott’s handling of his job. That’s up just 2 points from a similar poll in May, a month after he became chancellor.

During the same period, his disapproval rating swung from from 21 percent to 34 percent. His disapproval rating among public school parents rose from 32 percent to 45 percent.

It appears that many of the people who have made up their minds about Walcott since April have decided they do not approve of his job performance. (more…)

To our readers who are wondering if they’re invited to our party this year, the answer is no. Not yet!

That’s because we’re postponing our annual party to the spring, when our team will have more time to plan a great night.

What are we so busy doing — in addition to reporting daily about the city’s schools? As you probably know by now, we fight a constant battle to stay afloat; local public interest journalism is a tough business, and the education beat is as persistently under-appreciated as the sector itself.

Right now, our attention is captured by that fight — in particular, by a plan that we hope will make us more sustainable (fiscally and otherwise) in the long term. (You helped us craft the plan when you answered the survey we conducted with Ed News Colorado in the fall.)

And so party-planning will have to wait. But please, do not wait to make your annual contribution to GothamSchools! As we’ve said before, the most important key to our success is our independence. Help us make sure that grassroots reader support remains a substantial piece of our financial picture. Even a modest check — $100, $50, even $25 is welcome — helps us hold on to our independence.

Donations are of course fully tax-deductible and very easy to make by visiting our Donate page. We look forward to seeing you all very soon in the spring, when we hope to have lots of exciting news to share.