GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

While you’re reading this post, I’m standing in front of a classroom full of eighth-graders.

That’s right: After six fun and interesting months helping to launch GothamSchools, I have decided to return to teaching.

I have learned so much from seeing the city’s schools from a new perspective. But whenever I visited a school as a reporter, I felt, deep down, that I really wanted to be teaching there. So I’ve very much looked forward to being back in the classroom, and my post yesterday about Citizen Schools will be my last here on GothamSchools.

I want to thank the team here who have made the site possible. I feel very comfortable leaving, knowing the blog is in the hands of top-notch reporters Elizabeth and Philissa. The biggest thank you, of course, goes to readers, for turning to the site for school news, for sending in tips, and for sparking conversation in the comments. Keep it up!

In anticipation of your questions, I’m taking over eighth-grade earth science at a charter school in Harlem, and no, I won’t be blogging about it. I suspect I won’t have a free moment not devoted to plate tectonics and topographic maps.

A Boston-based program that pairs adult mentors with middle school students who want to learn how to design video games or launch a business is now bringing its brand of mentoring to New York City kids.

Citizen Schools, a decade-old organization that facilitates apprenticeships for students in almost 20 cities nationwide, set up shop at four middle schools this year, two each in Brooklyn and East Harlem. At each school, the organization is offering professional instruction, an after-school program, and classroom support, according to Nitzan Pelman, Citizen Schools’ New York City executive director.

The centerpiece of Citizen Schools’ programming is the apprenticeship, in which adult volunteers spend 12 weeks teaching students about a particular subject before the students present their work to a panel of experts on that subject. (more…)

Today’s New York Times reported that Obama could oversee “the largest new federal initiative for young children since Head Start began in 1965″ if he makes good on his pledge of $10 billion for early childhood education, leaving proponents of such programs “atremble” in anticipation of his administration’s support.

More than 20,000 youngsters participated in the first Head Start programs in New York City in the summer of 1965, the Times reported that year. The full article is after the jump. (more…)

President-elect Obama just announced Arne Duncan, the Chicago schools chief, as his secretary of education. In doing so he suggested that pragmatism, not ideology, will be his guiding principle in navigating the wars inside the Democratic Party over how to improve schools. “Let’s not be clouded by ideology,” he said, praising Duncan’s “deep pragmatism.”

Obama reiterated his support for innovations like merit pay for teachers and charter schools, yet also indicated he may sympathize with the incrementalists in the disrupter-versus-incrementalist debate that George Miller, the chair of the House’s education committee, laid out recently. “We’re not going to transform the schools overnight,” he said.

As Elizabeth wrote yesterday, the next place to watch is the sub-cabinet positions. (more…)

Thousands of students in New York have their roots in Puerto Rico, and many make the trip back every year. When they do, they’re traveling to an island whose children lag behind other American students on a national test of math skills.

According to Education Week, Puerto Rican students have performed far worse than students in the nation as a whole on the math component of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test used to compare student performance across states. (The test, translated into Spanish, has been given in Puerto Rico since 2003. Puerto Rican students don’t take NAEP’s reading section.)

The students’ low scores mean that the many teachers in New York City whose students are recent arrivals from Puerto Rico must try to make up for the effects of a deficient school system. The number of students in city schools who have attended school in Puerto Rico is not available, a spokesperson for the Department of Education told me, but almost 800,000 residents of New York City identified as Puerto Rican in the 2000 census. (more…)

Stephen Colbert, who has in recent months hosted KIPP charter school founder Mike Feinberg, cash-for-grades guru Roland Fryer, and New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein, this week spent a few minutes talking with Geoffrey Canada.

Canada, who started the Harlem Children’s Zone, got his message across, loud and clear: Helping poor kids get a good education, go to college, and start careers is great news for the national bottom line.

Who’s the next ed-star Colbert should interview?

[Via This Week In Education]