GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

off deadline

Month after turnaround news, official applications still not done

More than a month after Mayor Bloomberg announced that he would fulfill a state requirement by overhauling 33 struggling schools, the city still has not officially informed the state of its plans.

The announcement, which came during Bloomberg’s State of the City address Jan. 12, was an attempt to circumvent a requirement that the city and teachers union agree on new teacher evaluations. New evaluations were a condition of the previous improvement processes the schools were undergoing with funding from federal School Improvement Grants. But turnaround, which requires schools to replace at least half of their teachers, does not call for new evaluations.

The turnaround switch isn’t up to the city alone. State Education Commissioner John King must sign off on the plans if they are to get the federal funds. King has said the turnaround model Bloomberg described is “approvable.” But he still hasn’t seen any details.

That’s because the city hasn’t supplied them. For weeks, city officials — including Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott — had cited Feb. 10 as the deadline to complete applications detailing the turnaround plans, but the day came and went with no completed applications in sight.

Department officials now say the deadline was only internal, and now the city is aiming to finish them up by the end of this week. That way, the officials said, the applications can be on the table next week when the city has its hearing about the SIG grants with state education officials.

The behind-closed-doors hearing, set for Feb. 22 in Albany, is the city’s chance to convince King to reinstate the funds he cut off when the city and teachers union failed to agree on new teacher evaluations by a Dec. 31 deadline.

But the hearing is not focused on future plans for the schools. Rather, it will examine how the city has complied with its SIG application for the current school year, which contains the unfulfilled promise to enact new teacher evaluations. Other districts whose SIG grants were cut off are working to demonstrate that they are now prepared to implement new teacher evaluations. That’s not yet a possibility for the city, although it could be if the city and UFT hammer out an evaluations deal before a different deadline Thursday that Gov. Andrew Cuomo set.

It’s not immediately apparent how submitting turnaround plans would help the city make a case for reinstatement during the hearing next week. The applications would clear the way for the turnarounds to begin at the 33 schools in the 2012-2013 school year, when a new set of grants are set to be disbursed.

State officials said there was no hard deadline set yet for applications for next year’s grants to be turned in. But if the city wants to press forward with turnaround, it must release “Education Impact Statements” about the proposals by the first week of March — six months before the start of the new school year — in accordance with state law.

King has said it would likely take several weeks for him to decide on the turnaround applications once he receives them. That could put the city in the sticky situation of releasing detailed plans about school closure proposals without actually knowing whether the state will sign off on them.

  • nuff said

    Could it be that Yoav Gonen from the Post put King between a rock and a hard place  when it comes to closings with his revelation that the “targeted improvement plans” were never put in place and in fact didn’t even exist!–a State requirement—–

  • Iratecustomer

    What a mess. A month and they cant get an application together? How many bootlicking, educrat, toady shmucks does it take to write a BS application? Everyone knows the substance of the application means nothing so just slap the thing together and lets get on it with it. The application will be garbage, the public outrage will be palpable and the PEP will put their rubberstamp on it, right after King, ever dutiful, does what he’s told to do by the people that got him a job hes unqualified to do. Bloomberg will get his way and continue to play this shell game with the schools, hiding the kids with the most needs and pretending he improved schools.

  • Transformation Teacher

    Thanks for the report GS! I know that I have been bothering you all week about this.  I can’t believe they have not finished yet either.  I agree with Irate the applications are clearly a joke, although I am sure the DOE is making sure they cross their T’s and dot their I’s as I am sure the UFT will jump on any mistake with a lawsuit.  It will still be interesting to see which schools, if any, they decide not to submit applications for.  They already closed 25 schools, I doubt that even the mayor thinks he can get away with another 33.  By the time the PEP votes on April 26 the list will be closer to 20 I bet.

  • Pogue

     Shoddy leadership.  How do these goofballs get any respect from anyone?

    Show me the mayoral candidate that wants to do the exact opposite of these morons and you’ve got my vote.

  • Guest

    A month after turnaround announcement and applications still not done…#BLUFF

  • N. Rodriguez

    Oh Yesssss – Michael Best can do it.  Get Michael Best to file the stuff.  He’s the leader and Bloomberg’s boy.  Well at least his father-in-law is.

  • Guest

    The mayor has made an error most first year teachers are warned about – never make a threat you can’t follow through with. There is no way he has the political capital to close 33 schools only to secure more state funding. His threat was suppose to be used as leverage at the negotiating table over new teacher evaluations. Now he has put himself in a very difficult position. He can attempt to turn around the 33 schools and see civic unrest that rivals the massive marches of OWS or he can do nothing and admit defeat to the UFT.

  • http://nyceducator.com/ NYC Educator

    It’s pretty clear, after Mayor Bloomberg went and reversed a term limits law twice affirmed by city voters, that rules do not apply to him. Why do you think we have a fake board of education that pretends to listen to community members and then invariably does whatever Bloomberg wants? If rules were important, why would we have mayoral control?

  • nuff said

    pretty slick tho just file papers late and blame the state

Tips, questions, feedback?

Contact us at .

Word from Our Sponsor

Chalk It Up

Recent Comments

19 comments so far today

Archives

June 2013
M T W T F S S
« May  
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930