GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Spider-Man’s 89-year-old creator belts DeWitt Clinton HS’s fight song to defend his school. (YouTube)
• A veteran ed reporter is looking for help making a movie about New Orleans’ schools. (Kickstarter)
• For the first time in more than a decade, the NAACP has set a complete education agenda. (NAACP)
• A teacher says she’d take a “bar exam” in a second if it would give her respect. (View from the Bronx)
• NYCpublic.org is holding a session Saturday to envision a post-Bloomberg school system. (GS Calendar)
• Former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush said he’d give Obama “a passing grade” on education. (School of Thought)
• The test-making coalition that N.Y. is not part of is enlisting students to help design exams. (EdWeek)

Students from the the UFT Charter School spoke in support of the school's charter renewal Thursday night.

The reviewers who will help decide the UFT Charter School’s fate have seen the data, observed classroom instruction and studied its operations. On Thursday night, they heard from students, teachers and parents.

“It hasn’t always been easy,” said Brian C. Saunders, speaking about his autistic eighth grade son, who has been at the school since first grade. “Sometimes it’s been difficult, but along every step of the way he’s grown. He’s matured.”

Saunder’s son has a longer tenure than most of the adults in his school, which has undergone four leadership changes since 2009 and a turnover of 30 teachers in 2011. During and after those years of disarray, the school faltered, test scores plummeted, and was found to be in violation of federal law for providing inadequate services to students learning English, according to a report released earlier this year.

School officials say that there is strong evidence that the school was improving and on Thursday Saunders and two dozen others spoke about those changes.

“Numbers don’t always tell the story,” said board chair Evelyn DeJesus.

It might not make much of a difference. In New York State, charter schools must get permission from their authorizing body when its charter expires, a term that lasts five years or less. The board of trustees of the State University of New York, which originally authorized the school to open in 2005, will make its decision early next year. Renewal decisions are “heavily based on academic results,” according to the SUNY Charter Schools Institute, which makes recommendations to the board. (more…)

A principal chosen to lead improvement at Banana Kelly High School has resigned, months after being shot by a BB gun outside the school.

Antonio Arocho stepped down this week, adding a second abrupt leadership change to Banana Kelly’s recent history of dramatic ups and downs. He is now working as an assistant principal at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in East Harlem.

While the move represents a demotion, Arocho’s resignation was voluntary, according to Department of Education spokewoman Connie Pankratz, who said the decision to leave was motivated by “personal reasons.”

Earlier this fall, Arocho had been shot with a BB pellet one morning before school, DNAInfo reported in October. A student had also doused him and more than a dozen classmates with pepper-spray in December 2011. (more…)

• In a 16-year-old case, a court ruled that teacher exams discriminated against minorities. (Reuters, Post)
• Jon Kest, a labor leader who organized an anti-Bloomberg education coalition, has died. (Daily News)
• The maximum required commute time for students dropped to 75 minutes. (GothamSchools, Daily News)
• Michael Mulgrew gave mayoral contenders permission to use his name in fundraising. (GothamSchools)
• Three-quarters of New Haven’s Teach For America corp members left after two years. (N.H. Independent)
• An audit into special education billing found the city regularly billed for phantom services. (Schoolbook)
• Naomi Riley: Park Slope parents say they want diversity, but not necessarily in their schools. (Post)
• The Daily News says too many students aren’t being prepared for changes in technology and science.
• Louisiana is testing out “a la carte schools,” where classes come from a variety of sources. (Reuters)