GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• One upshot of kids bringing iPhones to school: more graphing calculators.
• The UFT appears to be producing promotional videos for teachers without positions.
• JD2718 points out that a recent report about city teachers’ experience lacked sources.
• The No Child Left Behind law turns seven today, and President Bush celebrated in Philadelphia.
• For the first time, a dad is taking the helm of the national PTA.
• In his last USA Today editorial, Richard Whitmire says Obama’s victory could help black boys.
• Mike Petrilli asks, Do we need to teach 21st-century skills to 21st-century kids?
• A reporter describes a visit to Baltimore’s Homeland Security Academy high school.

If you’re frustrated with the slow pace and finicky search requirements of the new city payroll database, you probably wish there existed a single Excel file with the salary information for all central Department of Education employees. Now one does.

Happy sorting and leave a comment telling us what you discover!

Henry Levin

Today’s “Those Who Dared” excerpt is from the essay by Henry Levin, a Columbia University economist whose work focuses on the economics of education.

Earlier in his career, Levin supervised the Accelerated Schools Project, an effort to push a handful of low-performing California elementary schools to offer enhanced instruction to all students. Because of that experience, Levin argues that teachers should spend more time preparing instruction, not delivering it. This opinion sets him apart from some contemporary policy wonks who are pushing schools to adopt a longer school day and school year. He writes:

There is never enough time for planning, problem-solving, group learning, democratic participation in decisions, gathering information, celebrating, and all of the other activities that need to be incorporated into an Accelerated School. So called in-service days are few, and allocations for preparation time are typically encumbered by other demands that cannot easily be shed. Democratic decision-making for the school, problem-solving with inquiry methods, and the formulation and implementation of powerful learning units take considerable time, but all expand equity and effectiveness of instruction considerably. ASP always found that even creative ways of obtaining time outside of instruction were challenging and required compromises of personal time and school activities. Somehow we must find ways of building more time into the school day for planning and collaboration (as the Japanese do), even if there are fewer minutes of instruction.

It’s now possible to find out in just a couple of clicks how much any city Department of Education employee is paid, from the chancellor ($250,000 a year) to hourly school aides ($7.15 an hour, the minimum wage).

The Empire Center for New York State Policy, a project of the Manhattan Institute, today added New York City workers to its searchable database of state employees on SeeThroughNY.net, a site that aims to expose how state tax dollars are spent.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is the highest-paid city employee, taking home a quarter of a million dollars every year. Other top earners, with salaries of $196,575, include Jim Liebman, who heads the DOE’s accountability office; Eric Nadelstern, who runs the empowerment schools network; and Christopher Cerf, the chancellor’s deputy in charge of organization. Marcia Lyles, the top-ranking educator in the department, takes home $203,000. According to a summary provided by the Empire Center, more than 11 percent of full-time teachers draw salaries over $100,000.

The database can’t be used to find some information advocates have sought about DOE spending, such as how much each department of the central administration is allocated or how many people work in each department. (more…)

The city office that investigates the Department of Education today released a statistical summary of its last year’s work, showing that it completed more investigations in 2008 than in any other recent year.

According to the report (pdf), the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation substantiated 327 cases out of 725 started, reflecting a slight uptick in both the number of cases opened and the number of complaints substantiated.

But the office issued only 17 press releases about its investigations. (more…)

Bronx 2020, a career-changer who wants nothing more than to become a New York City public school teacher, has applied to the city’s Teaching Fellows program. He has had an interview, and now he’s just waiting. Until when, he’s not sure. He writes:

I really have no firm date by which I’m suppose to hear back from NYC Teaching Fellows. I’ve gotten various answers back from different people. I’ve heard 5 weeks after the interview (which would be tomorrow). I’ve heard mid-January. I’ve heard late-January and even early-February. It’s like they’ve got a drunken monkey spinning a wheel-of-luck doo-hickey in their office deciding our fate.

Later, he notes that the Teaching Fellows Web site says the program will let applicants know within five to seven weeks after their interviews, so he should know by later this month whether he’ll be a teacher in September. And back in October, he worried about how the size reduction in the upcoming Teaching Fellows cohort would affect his chances of admission.

• Some Brooklyn parents like the fact that their schools are free. (Daily News)
• Homeschooling is on the rise in New York City, just as it is nationally. (Daily News)
• Caroline Kennedy is being asked to disclose her finances after all. (Times)
• D.C. politicians are pushing for an independent review of Michelle Rhee’s reforms. (Washington Post)
• A new study shows Boston charter schools scoring high but also raises red flags. (Boston Globe)
• British officials are taking on a new school scourge: boring teaching. (BBC)
• The Times says principals, not police, should have authority over school discipline.

• Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum has challenged the mayor to a debate on mayoral control, in Spanish.
• Leonie Haimson says the factors underlying the economic crash portend a crisis in the city’s schools.
• Insideschools describes how one high school teacher is already doing more with less.
• JD2178 says Chancellor Klein’s policies and personnel choices reflect an anti-experience bias.
• The fictitious billionaire Smellington Worthington endorses “grand old girl” Caroline Kennedy.
• Math teachers at Bronx Science have filed a special complaint against their assistant principal.
• Denver’s Michael Bennet might be the first schools chief in the U.S. Senate since Strom Thurmond.
• A scholar of education policy argues against blaming special education for schools’ failures.
• A screed against those spam e-mails that promise teaching certification in just days, from home!
• Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform says NCLB arose from a “vast left-wing conspiracy.”

To some, it may seem that there’s no way this year can be more exciting than 2008, with its protracted campaigns and historic presidential election. But with questions about governance, leadership, and funding looming large, 2009 promises to be quite the year in the New York City education world.

Here are three big questions that will be answered, at least in part, in the next 12 months: (more…)

One of the books I read during my blogging vacation was “Those Who Dared: Five Visionaries Who Changed American Education.” The new volume, edited by Carl Glickman, contains autobiographical essays by five progressive educators. This week, I’ll be highlighting the most provocative observation made by each one.

First up is Deborah Meier, one of the progenitors of the small schools movement who founded an influential elementary school, Central Park East, in East Harlem in 1974. She went on to help create a host of non-traditional schools in the neighborhood and now teaches at New York University’s education school.

A proponent of play, democratic classrooms, and assessments other than standardized tests, Meier generally isn’t part of the education policy discussion dominated by fans of “no excuses” schools such as KIPP. But in her essay, she describes one challenge currently facing some “idealocrat” reformers: How to sustain innovative schools that are only barely able to exist in the first place. On that question, Meier doesn’t have much advice. She writes:

None of the schools I started were permanently protected from the standardizing influences that have surrounded them in the last 20 years. Above all, I never figured out how, in the world of here and now, such schools could survive without very particular conditions — strong godfathers, politically strong leadership, and few key politically hep parents. Sustainability, short of revolutionizing the entire system to one’s way of thinking or breaking free altogether of the public system, has eluded me.