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…)

After four months of continuous test prep for January’s English Language Arts exam, her fifth graders refuse even to engage with the text anymore, reports They Call Me Teacher:

My students give up before the test prep reading is even handed to them. They already know what answer they are going to choose… without even reading the options (or the story). They have already mastered the fake reading… where they look blankly at the text and then, after a few moments, move on. No matter how many times we model, partner, attempt to hold students accountable with underlining and highlighting and written explanations of why the answer they chose are the best answer… it doesn’t follow through into testing. These students are completely capable of finding the most basic answers in the text, but they don’t care. It’s not important to them. … And WHO could blame them?

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…)

Via Edwize, second grade reading teacher Miss Brave explains why she has to record her students’ assessment data all over again:

This morning we had a meeting at which we were told we would have to re-enter each student’s individual results onto a class summary sheet. Had we, in fact, already done this? Yes! But when we asked what happened to the last summary sheet, we were dismissed with a curt, “I don’t know.”

Um… So, okay, let’s review. As part of my job, I did the following:

• Administered the assessment to each individual student.
• Graded the assessment of each individual student.
• Entered the assessment of each individual student onto a class composite summary sheet.
• Handed off the data to people who are supposed to be in charge of entering it into the computer.

And those people, as part of their jobs, did the following:

• Lost my data.

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…)

Guest-blogging at NYC Educator, teacher Yo, Miss! wonders if she should anonymously help this student’s family:

“When are you putting up your Christmas tree, Stacey?” Tiffany asked. (Not their real names.)

“Oh,” Stacey said softly, “um, I don’t know.”

“I thought we were late!” Tiffany exclaimed. “I guess you’ll probably be later than us.”

“It’s not that,” Stacey said. “My dad said we might not have a Christmas tree this year.”

“Why?” Tiffany asked.

“He says we can’t afford one,” Stacey said. “He only gets paid when he works, and he isn’t getting work, really, right now. Like, one or two days a week only, sometimes.”

And two teachers blogging at Daily Kos recently related stories of their students’ fears and realities as their families make tough choices.

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]

Four students from CIS 339, a Bronx middle school known for creatively integrating technology into its classes, spent Thursday night live-blogging the school’s Parent Expo. At the Expo, classes shared their work with their parents through slide shows, displays, iMovies, and more. Here are some excerpts from their on-the-scene reports, and here’s the full story.

Eighth grader Aurelie set the scene:

All classes are empty right now. Teachers are a little bit tense and hope that parents and students will all be there for the rendezvous. Some students are preparing some of the speeches they will present in front of the class when parents arrive. The entrance of the school is crowded by people signing in. Balloons and some small tables are placed just where people walk by the principal’s hallway.

Fellow eighth grader Osafo learned from younger students:

In Ms. Marmora’s English Language Arts class the children made a video to explain the books they have been reading in class. The difference between the video these kids made and videos from other classes was that they recommended the books. After watching the videos, I felt like going to get a copy of each of their books.

(more…)