GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• A charter school in a gentrifying neighborhood of Atlanta is diversifying, too. (Atlantic/Hechinger)
• In June, a researcher shared findings about integration and gentrification here. (Useable Knowledge)
• Zooey Deschanel’s “New Girl” character is set to lose her teaching job to budget cuts. (Inside TV)
• Congress spent the day debating the effective of automatic budget cuts on schools. (Politics K-12)
• Sal Khan of Khan Academy responds to the critics who say his site isn’t so great. (Answer Sheet)
• A mystery billionaire who donates to education has many potential conflicts of interest. (Eduwonk)
• Two critics offer a wonky take on how conservatives make education laws. (Truthout via Norm’s Notes)
• Teachers advise parents on how to interpret state test scores, available to them Monday. (SchoolBook)
• Diane Ravitch looks at 40 years of national test scores and finds little to worry about. (DR’s Blog)

From left to right, teachers Dan Mejias, Mike McQuillen, and Lori Wheal speak to NY1 host Errol Louis about turnaround at their schools. M.S. 22 Principal Linda Rosenbury is obscured behind Mejias.

When three teachers and a city principal sat down with NY1 reporter Errol Louis on Tuesday evening, they had just learned that the city’s final chance to “turn around” their schools had fallen short.

The decision meant that, contrary to the city’s intention, their schools’ names won’t change. And even if the teachers had been told not to return — none of them had been — they could. It also means that a two-year experiment in using federal funds to fuel extra programs at the struggling schools has almost certainly come to an end. Receiving the funds, called School Improvement Grants, was contingent on turnaround, but an arbitrator concluded that the city’s plans violated its contracts with the teachers and principals union.

Appearing on Inside City Hall, the teachers — all part of an advocacy group that has clashed with the unions — said picking up the pieces would require more than simply blaming the UFT for suing over turnaround, and one even gave an impassioned defense of the union.

The teachers also warned that the schools might actually be in worse shape this fall than before they first received the federal funds in 2010.

“Morale just crashed when we got those letters” telling teachers they had to reapply for their jobs, said Lori Wheal, a “master teacher” who was told she could stay on at M.S. 391 but is leaving for the policy arena instead. “We lost several effective educators.” (more…)

To learn more about what’s in each photograph, click to read the caption.

When Ife Lenard and her crew first entered the third-floor classrooms that will house the Children’s Aid Society Charter School this fall, they found a dusty rotary phone, a decades-old beer can, and lockers coated with grime from years of middle-schoolers’ use.

But Lenard, the founding principal, can already envision how the classrooms — now gutted — will look come September, when the school opens to 130 kindergarten and first-graders in a South Bronx public school building.

That vision includes lots of floor rugs and tables for small-group activities, computer stations, fall colors such as “squash yellow,” a terrarium, and an aquarium, Lenard said as she led a procession of Children’s Aid Society officials, clad in bright orange hard hats, including director Richard Buery, on a walking tour of the school earlier this week. (more…)

We had such a good time celebrating the end of the school year with our readers in June that we’re throwing another party, this time to start saying goodbye to summer break.

Lots of people might be out of town Aug. 15, but we’ll be hosting happy hour that afternoon on the roof deck of our beautiful donated office space. RSVP now to join us and meet fellow GothamSchools readers then.

The city’s guide to high school admissions includes a directory the size of a telephone book and a few summer workshops. But six high school students say the process can be summed up much more simply — and they’ve taken a stab at doing so.

Working with the Resilience Advocacy Project, a youth organization, and Center for Urban Pedagogy, a non-profit that combines art with civic education, the students created a multimedia guide that fits into one comic strip. They say their guide is a necessary supplement to the tome they received from the Department of Education when they were in middle school.

The city’s labyrinthine high school admissions process requires all eighth-graders to rank up to 12 schools within an hour-and-a-half commute of their homes, then matches — or fails to match — each applicant with one of his or her choices. But many students wind up in schools that aren’t right for them because they don’t have the resources or support to properly navigate the system, said Brooke Richie, RAP’s executive director. (more…)

• An agreement in Chicago will extend the school day for students but not for teachers. (Tribune, AP)
• Los Angeles’s teachers union says it could let test scores factor into evaluations this year. (L.A. Times)
• A judge ended the city’s turnaround plans for the year. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook, Post, NY1, WSJ)
• But first, a city principal tried to sway the judge with a petition supporting the plans. (GothamSchools)
• Donations to mayoral candidates from people interested in education have been slow. (GothamSchools)
• A student at a Staten Island private school died after collapsing during football practice Tuesday. (Post)
• A Philadelphia charter school operator was charged with stealing $6 million from her schools. (Inquirer)