GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• A senate panel approved two programs to boost Department of Education funds. (Politcs K-12)
• Teacher: “going the extra mile” might mean starting at 7 a.m. and skipping lunch. (GS Community)
• Mike Petrilli and Susan Headden discuss the Common Core’s potential impact. (Fordham Institute)
• Deborah Kenny’s book tour gets some critical publicity from Gary Rubinstein. (Teach For Us)
• Here’s one lawmaker’s take on a sparsely covered a state hearing on testing. (CapTon)
• Students’ testimonies of drug use are pouring in after a Times’ story about it. (Times)
• A Mad Men guide to what ed reporting looks like at the Times (spoiler alert!). (Quick & Ed)
• A court decision barring schools from turning away students for legal status turned 30. (School Law)
• A good-natured panel with six Democratic mayoral candidates was light on substance. (City & State)
• A teacher questions the validity of the city’s new graduation data. (Chaz’s School Daze)

Leroy Comrie, a councilman from Queens, speaks at NYC Parents Union rally before the city council hearing.

After months of waiting to hear the results of a pilot program for the city’s special education reforms, many advocates hoped they would finally get some answers today at a City Council hearing. But when Department of Education officials sat down to testify, there were few revelations.

It’s not that the DOE was witholding any new information. It was just that no such data yet existed, said Laura Rodriguez, the outgoing Deputy Chancellor of Special Education.

Rodriquez said they had so far collected data for only a couple of measures – such as attendance and the rate of movement of students with special needs into general education settings – and that they hadn’t focused on other key metrics. Advocates say that other important measures of success include suspension rates and parent surveys. (more…)

Teachers Kevin Kearns, (right) and others protest the turnaround plans in front of Department of Education headquarters.

With the 24 turnaround schools deep into the hiring process, a small handful of teachers gathered in front of Tweed this afternoon to show their opposition despite the rain.

Protesters from John Dewey High School Lehman High School grimly described their uncertain futures. But they did not renew any pleas to Department of Education officials to stop the turnaround. They were joined by several teachers from Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School, which the city placed on its original list of turnaround schools but later removed.

Marian Swerdlow, the FDR union chapter leader-elect, said she and several colleagues turned out this afternoon to show their support and register opposition to all school closures. She stood stone-faced in front of the DOE headquarters in a United Federation of Teachers rain poncho, holding a crumpled sign that read, “the turnaround model is all wet.”

The city cannot make any final hiring decisions at the 24 schools, which are closing this summer and immediately re-opening under the reform model known as ‘turnaround.’ But hiring committees made up of city and teachers union officials, school administrators and parents in each of the schools have been busily conducting back-to-back interviews with teachers hoping to keep their jobs. (more…)

Volunteers prepare for more than a thousand city principals to check in at the conference, held Saturday at Brooklyn Tech.

A year ago, Department of Education officials gathered more than a thousand city principals in a hot auditorium for a speech by Common Core architect David Coleman. The energy in the room was “truly off the charts“ according to Chancellor Dennis Walcott, and it set the tone for this school year.

This year’s principals’ leadership conference, held Saturday at Brooklyn Technical High School, took a lower-key tone, focusing not on big ideas but on the nitty-gritty of implementing existing ones. A series of workshops delved into the Common Core learning standards, evolving state tests, looming special education reforms, and observing teachers — all issues that have dominated the city’s policy agenda for more than a year.

Instead of Coleman, whose standards are new for New York, the principals heard from Robert Evans, a clinical and organizational psychologist, and received copies of his book, “The Human Side of Change.” Evans urged principals to give the Common Core a positive spin while rolling it out in their schools.

That’s exactly what Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky urged when he instructed principals to continue to communicate the importance of the Common Core, especially as the state transitions to assessments based on the standards.

“As principal, one of your biggest challenges is to create a sense of urgency around this work without creating a sense of panic or anxiety,” he said during a portion of the day that was open to reporters. (more…)

• A union-backed plan would give parents limited access to teacher evaluations. (Daily News)
• After six years of steady growth, the city’s graduation rate flatlined. (GothamSchools, AP, NY1)
• Bloomberg praised the numbers but said they would be “tougher” to keep up.  (GothamSchools)
• A principal was fired after stealing a grand piano from his Bronx school. (Post, City Room)
• Walcott said he has experienced the stop-and-frisk policy firsthand but still supports it. (NY1)
• A school that banned “God Bless the USA” will no longer play a Justin Bieber song at graduation. (Post)
• A school bus driver was beaten in the Bronx after clipping a car during his route. (Post)
• In his presidential bid, Mitt Romney champions school choice but avoids the voucher issue. (Times)
• Chicago’s teachers union voted to tell city officials that the union will strike if it decides to. (Tribune)
• Parent protests against high-stakes testing are on the rise in states across the country. (Reuters)
• Most students at a high school admissions test prep center are from Bangladesh. (Insideschools)
• The Bronx district attorney will hear reports of past sex abuse at the private Horace Mann School. (Times)