GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• A special education teacher lists what she bought her classroom with an extra $500. (Ms Speducate)
• Ed Secretary Arne Duncan listed $1.3 billion in “sequester” cuts to special ed and Title I. (Politics K-12)
• A teacher preferred one of the special ed classes at a city KIPP school over the other. (Gary Rubinstein)
• A teacher describes the technical challenges he ran into as his students made videos. (NYC Educator)
• Illinois educators are alarmed by a state proposal to do away with special ed class size caps. (Catalyst)
• Los Angeles isn’t the only place where national education reformers are going local. (HuffPo/Hechinger)
• A quick and dirty summary of what’s going on in L.A. right now says the union still has an edge. (Russo)
• A study of teachers who used Student Learning Objectives found benefits for students. (Teacher Beat)
• Some Massachusetts lawmakers want schools to stop writing home about students’ weight. (BuzzFeed)
• On Business Computer Applications and Entrepreneurship High School’s closure hearing. (ICE-UFT)
• A warning: Without a good definition for teacher leadership, there will be few takers. (Future of Teaching)
• Building on what P-TECH is doing in Brooklyn, the state and IBM will partner on schools. (NY.gov)
• A mother describes tumbling down the slippery slope toward doing her son’s homework. (Insideschools)

A court order and support from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver aren’t enough to stop the city from slashing its schools budget this year.

City officials said today that they were fiscally obligated to move forward in making a midyear budget adjustment to account for an expected $250 million deficit during the final months of the school year, even though a judge has for now barred the state from taking back the funds.

The move has the attorney who convinced the judge to halt the state budget cuts planning to sue the city, too. (more…)

Principal Rose Lobianco spoke to community members and city officials during a public hearing on the city’s plan to close Herbert H. Lehman High School. (Photo: Mariana Ionova)

Whether it was their first public hearing or their fifth, supporters of several schools that the city has proposed closing brought high energy to closure hearings held Tuesday evening.

Both Herbert H. Lehman High School and the High School of Graphic Communication Arts were briefly slated to close last year before a labor ruling halted the Department of Education’s plans. Now they are on the chopping block again. On Tuesday, Lehman’s vocal supporters reprised their support, while at Graphics, the debate shifted to what would move into the space instead. Supporters of a third school whose closure hearing was held on Tuesday, J.H.S. 302 in Brooklyn, brought fresh energy to the hearing, a first for the school.

The hearings are a required part of the city’s process to close or open schools, which culminates with a vote by the Panel for Educational Policy. The panel, which has never rejected a city proposal, is set to vote March 11 on closure plans for 24 schools.

Herbert H. Lehman High School (more…)

The Independent Budget Office released a compilation of statistics today about schools facing closure, including their spending distribution and share of high-need students.

High schools up for closure this year actually serve fewer students with special needs than they used to, according to a new report by the city’s data watchdog group.

But because the nine high schools are much smaller than they once were, students with special needs still represent a far higher share of their total enrollment, according to the report released today by the city’s Independent Budget Office. All together, the high schools enrolled a third fewer new students last year than in 2006, the IBO found.

The report marks the fourth time that the IBO has compiled enrollment, spending, and performance data about schools that the city is trying to close. It also marked the fourth time that the office, which state law charges with scrutinizing Department of Education data, has concluded that schools up for closure have higher-than-average concentrations of high-need students. (more…)

A screenshot from the Daily News’ livestream coverage.

Joe Lhota wants to bring performance-based pay for teachers to New York City finally and he thinks he can convince a union that’s long been opposed to the idea.

Making his debut on education in a forum hosted by the New York Daily News last night, Lhota said he would seek to replicate Newark’s new merit pay system if he became mayor.

He hailed the Bloomberg administration’s record on education and aligned himself with the mayor on policies of closing low-performing schools and supporting charter schools. But he said the Bloomberg legacy was incomplete.

“The one piece that’s missing is working with the union for merit pay and changing their approach,” Lhota said in an interview after the forum. (more…)

• The State Education Department is showing a mural that depicts slavery for an hour a month. (Times)
• In his debut on education, Republican mayoral contender Joe Lhota proposed teacher merit pay. (Post)
• The struggling UFT Charter School got a two-year charter renewal. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook)
• The DOE’s ongoing Sandy recovery efforts got City Council praise. (GothamSchools, NY1, SchoolBook)
• The Eagle Academy Foundation’s CEO says boys schools make sense, despite criticism. (Daily News)
• Bob McManus: The latest CREDO study shows that charter schools have lifted all boats in Harlem. (Post)
• A sweeping study by Mathematica finds that students gain from attending KIPP charter schools. (HuffPo)
• Ohio is investigating school districts for “scrubbing” student data to boost scores. (Columbus Dispatch)
• The head of Mexico’s teachers union has been arrested on charges of embezzling union funds. (Times)