GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• The Department of Education has launched a searchable database of strike-disrupted school bus routes.
• Here’s backstory on the arcane legal issue at the heart of bus drivers union’s complaint. (SchoolBook)
• Families describe the ways they will deal with, or not deal with, the lack of school buses. (SchoolBook)
• A conservative think tank says a teacher bar exam would raise barriers to entry too much. (Heritage)
• A theory: The UFT outsourced its mediation request so its own lawyers could work. (NYCDOENuts)
• A new study finds that the more parents save for college, the lower their kids grades. (The Choice)
• Low- and high-scoring high schoolers think differently about simple math. (Inside School Research)
• New research finds benefits to “active ignoring” by teachers of behavior issues in the classroom. (WSJ)
• A new report finds that poor students in the U.S. are gaining on students in other countries. (Hechinger)
• California didn’t earn a federal NCLB waiver, but some of its districts still could. (Politics K-12)
• A teacher reminds the world that the Common Core is still not real to many on the ground. (Jose Vilson)

Tensions between the city and teachers over their t0-the-wire teacher evaluation talks bubbled over in 140 characters early this morning, sending both sides into their respective corners for most of the day.

But state education officials said the city Department of Education and the UFT had been laying the groundwork for a successful submission before the end of the day on Thursday, the deadline for districts to adopt new evaluations or lose state funding.

After a negotiations-packed weekend in which both city and union officials acknowledged that progress had been made, talks went late into the night on Monday at the union’s headquarters. But a little after 1:30 a.m., Leo Casey, a former vice president for the union who has stayed on to finish the evaluations deal, suggested in a Twitter message that negotiations had fizzled out.

“At UFT. Negotiating team prepared to do round the clock negotiating, with full team present,” Casey wrote. “But DOE leaves.” (more…)

City Council Speaker and mayoral frontrunner Christine Quinn visited a school with UFT President Michael Mulgrew at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year.

In her first major education policy address, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn signaled that she would depart in significant ways from Mayor Bloomberg’s approach to running the city’s schools.

Instead of pitting schools against each other, as Bloomberg’s policies have, Quinn said she would push them to collaborate. Instead of directing funds to pricey consultants, she said she would look for solutions within the system. And where Bloomberg spurred rapid growth in the city’s charter school sector, Quinn said she would keep the sector at its current size.

But on other issues, Quinn suggested that she would take a cue from the Bloomberg administration. For example, she said she would improve “customer service” to help families resolve problems but said only that she would “engage parents in relevant decisions and keep them in the loop.” One of Bloomberg’s first school policy changes, back in 2002, was to add parent coordinators to each school. But he has drawn sharp criticism for excluding parents from policy decisions.

Quinn’s ambitious list of education proposals includes extending school days, coordinating city services to provide comprehensive health and social services in schools, boosting literacy instruction, slashing some state testing, and buying a million tablets to replace textbooks. (more…)

A new form allows people to report suspicions of cheating on state tests online, simplifying a long-complicated process.

Starting today, school staffers can report their cheating suspicions online.

The state’s new test security watchdog has launched its website, allowing people to use an electronic form to file allegations about possible cheating by educators on state tests.

It’s one of the first concrete moves by the State Education Department’s new test security unit, created last year after a self-imposed audit of the department’s test security policies found them severely lacking.

The audit came after U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged states to scrutinize their test integrity practices following a spate of high-profile cheating scandals. The scandals threatened to undermine the real and perceived value of test scores even as New York State was attaching higher stakes to its scores.

The audit concluded that the state’s paper-based system for receiving allegations of improprieties was disorganized and outdated, creating the potential for “underreporting and underestimation of information.” Plus, the Office of State Assessment did not have anyone assigned exclusively to investigate allegations that did come in.

Now, four investigators —  all former state and federal law enforcement officers — are ready to look into cheating allegations received online, according to Tina Sciocchetti, who heads SED’s Test Security and Educator Integrity office. The investigators are also working on piles of years-old cold cases absorbed from the assessment office. (more…)

• A school bus strike will start Wednesday. (GothamSchools, Times, Daily News, WSJ, NY1, Post)
• The strike will disproportionately affect students with special needs, who more often take buses. (NY1)
• Families in Jamaica, Queens, said they were frustrated but would make other transportation plans. (NY1)
• Michael Benjamin: The bus drivers union’s advisors, allied with the labor left, are leading it astray. (Post)
• The Daily News says the bus drivers should solve their dispute with the mayor without hurting kids.
• The likely candidates for mayor all seem poised to fight legislative efforts to undo mayoral control. (Post)
• State education officials are ready to review a city-submitted teacher evaluation plan. (GothamSchools)
• Turnover is high and morale low at the Bronx’s P.S. 4, which has many low-rated teachers. (Daily News)
• The city has softened some special ed funding rules that worried principals, for now. (GothamSchools)
• An anonymous donor sent gifts to honor society inductees at Fordham High School of the Arts. (NY1)
• Catholic leaders say they hope the latest wave of parochial school closures will be the last. (Times)
• Families of children killed in the Sandy Hook school shooting will work to curb violence. (WSJ, Times)