GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Authors of the Common Core State Standards are releasing more math guidelines. (Curriculum Matters)
• How a middle school math teacher built up a struggling student’s math confidence. (Schoolbook)
• City officials are recognizing some schools have higher concentrations of struggling students. (EdVox)
• Advice for teachers and parents who want to talk to kids about the Colorado shooting. (Learning Network)
• Teacher: Classroom technology helps, but the best teachers can make do without it. (NYC Educator)
• An education writer says summer learning loss is less devastating than some claim it is. (Answer Sheet)
• A study says reading tutors without much training have less of an impact on students. (Early Ed Watch)
• Teacher: A positive school culture can make all the difference for students’ motivation. (Ed in the Apple)
• Alexander Russo predicts that charter schools could number 12,000 by 2028. (This Week in Education)

A new PBS Frontline documentary profiles a student at a high-needs Bronx middle school that we wrote about in May.

The 13-minute film, called “Middle School Moment“, follows eighth grader Omarina Cabrera, an academic star at M.S. 244 who became one of the school’s early intervention data system’s first success stories.

Cabrera was evicted from her home in sixth grade, a time that researchers have found to be the most vulnerable for young students. Cabrera was a promising student, but as her personal life faced increasing upheaval, her school performance slumped.

The film also follows Principal Dolores Peterson and a team of administrators, deans, counselors and teachers who work to provide its student body with social and emotional support. (more…)

This week was all about test scores for many of our commenters, who followed along with us as the state released the results of this year’s third through eighth grade exams, and city officials put their spin on them.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the public’s main takeaway from the scores should be that charter schools are making strides, and in many cases outperforming the district schools.

We took a closer look at the charter school gains, but some of our readers said people should be careful about making direct comparisons between charter and district schools, because in some cases they serve different populations of students.

One commenter said the mayor should not be celebrating the gains, because the schools still have a long way to go:

I was more struck by the fact that only half the kids in charter schools are reading and writing at grade level. What ever happened to the theory that it was mainly “union rules” that were holding kids back? Why are charter schools failing to educate nearly half their students even though they’re mostly union free and, more importantly, what can be done for the students who are not succeeding in charter or public schools?

Some parents provided a lens into how some charter schools achieved their gains: (more…)

Three mayoral appointees of the Panel for Educational Policy said their goodbyes on Wednesday at an otherwise uneventful monthly meeting. Tino Hernandez, the panel chair, briefly thanked Jeff Kay, Eduardo Martí and Joan Correale for serving on the PEP at a meeting that lasted just an hour.

Milton Williams, Rosemarie Maldonado, and Jeanette Moy are replacing them on the panel, which is tasked with approving school closures, co-locations, contracts, and other school initiatives. Moy and Maldonado have worked in City Hall, but none of them appear to have close ties to the K through 12 education sector—save Maldonado, who sent her children to public school.

Since the PEP was established in 2002 with the advent of mayoral control, it has voted to approve every one of the city’s policies, even when borough president appointees to the panel, who are in the minority, oppose them. The mayoral appointees have faced criticism from educators and advocates for consistently favoring city plans, even though they seem to have little choice. In 2004 Bloomberg removed panel appointees who were planning to vote against a proposal requiring students to pass the state exams before being promoted.

City officials did not respond to questions about the reasons for the changes. One clue might be the results of a March meeting, during which contracts related to the City University of New York could not be voted on because too many mayoral appointees with ties to CUNY had to recuse themselves from voting. Martí and Correale both work for CUNY.

Jeanette Moy is the vice president of strategic planning for the Brooklyn Library, a position she has held since December 2011, according to her Linkedin profile, after years of working for City Hall. She has served as a deputy chief of staff to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and a senior policy advisor with the city’s Office of Operations Customer Service Group. She has at least one direct connection to city schools: she’s an alumna of Stuyvesant High School. Moy declined to comment on her appointment. (more…)

(Credit: WOR)

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this morning that the test scores announced this week, which showed charter schools had out-paced district schools, are proof enough why the city should be expanding charters.

“There’s a reason people want to send their children to charter schools,” he said during his weekly morning appearance on the John Gambling radio show.

The average proficiency rate for charter schools students improved 7 percentage points on the state reading tests and 3.5 percentage points on math. The city’s district schools also improved but at a slower pace.

Bloomberg blamed the teachers union contract for the districts schools’ inability to duplicate the success of privately-managed charter schools, which have longer days and greater flexibility in hiring decisions.

But instead of making points about issues such as teacher tenure or seniority-based layoff laws, Bloomberg invoked more salacious news items.

“The union keeps protecting people that shouldn’t be in the classroom that touch, have sex, whatever it may be,” he said. “It embarrasses other teachers.” (more…)

The new head of special education at the Department of Education thinks long-planned reforms to the way city schools educate students with special needs are likely to be “very rocky” when they roll out this fall.

But Corinne Rello-Anselmi believes that not making radical changes would be far more damaging.

That’s what she told a group of parents who sit on a special education advisory board Thursday evening. It was Rello-Anselmi’s formal introduction to the board, the Citywide Council on Special Education, since taking over this month as deputy chancellor of special education and English language learning.

She replaces Laura Rodriguez, the first person to hold that position. Under Rodriguez’s leadership, the city launched sweeping reforms designed to integrate students with disabilities into classroom settings alongside their peers.

Those reforms have been underway in some schools for two years. But for most schools, the changes are taking effect only this year, bringing a new level of scrutiny to the special education deputy position. (more…)

• A network for closing schools is also a job opportunity for ousted school administrators. (Daily News)
• The Daily News says the UFT is to blame for the lag between citywide test scores charter school scores.
• After years apart, a divided secondary school in Washington Heights is uniting under a new roof. (News)
• Cuomo officially signed into law a bill that paves the way for universal kindergarten in the city. (Post)
• The DOE’s public affairs chief is leaving amidst reshuffling to teach in Honduras. (GothamSchools)
• A college professor writes that online learning disrupts a teacher’s need to learn from students. (Times)
• A few more details about the Flushing principal arrested this week for drug possession. (Post)