GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• Sometimes, school space-sharing plans stir up controversy. Sometimes, they don’t. (Brooklyn Bureau)
• A special education teacher recounts the saga of waiting for an observation that never came. (Miss Rim)
• Joel Klein is still not sure how the market will respond to Amplify, but he’s optimistic. (Fast Company)
• A new video profiles two schools that are teaching Asian languages to their students. (Asia Society)
• Houston is considering using student surveys for up to 30 percent of teachers’ ratings. (Joanne Jacobs)
• A city teacher who once backed the Common Core says she has changed her mind. (Living in Dialogue)
• In a new video, the State Education Department tries to win over Common Core skeptics. (GS in Brief)
• The city is opening 29 new dual-language programs this fall: what they are and where. (Insideschools)

A slew of glitches in the city’s electronic grading for Regents exams have delayed scores for several subjects, just days before high schools are set to begin holding graduation ceremonies.

The problems represent at best a significant inconvenience and cost and at worst a threat to students’ scores and graduation status, according to educators with knowledge of the grading process.

This is the first June that all Regents exams taken at city high schools are being graded through “distributed scoring,” an arrangement devised to prevent teachers from scoring tests taken by students at their schools. Until last year, teachers graded their own students’ exams, but under pressure to show that test scores are not inflated, the state barred that practice. The city’s scoring system extends the state’s rules.

After a pilot last year, the Department of Education opted to have four of the most-taken tests — Living Environment, Global Studies, U.S. History, and English — scored electronically. McGraw-Hill, the vendor administering the process, collects the exams at schools, transports them to a scanning site in Connecticut, and then distributes answers one by one to teachers stationed at computers in city grading centers.

The company is getting $3.5 million this year from the city to administer the distributed scoring program, part of a $9.6 million, three-year contract to manage the logistical acrobatics that the new arrangement requires. (more…)

• The city’s graduation rate dropped slightly. (GothamSchools, Times, NY1, Post, Daily News, WSJ, SB)
  
• Bloomberg used the occasion to take on the UFT. (GothamSchools, Post, WSJ, Politicker, Capital NY)
• Policy makers were split on how to interpret the rate, which reflects higher standards. (GothamSchools)
• Statewide, the average graduation rate was steady, but achievement gaps persist. (Albany Times Union)
• At Bronx Compass High School, teachers work to integrate the arts into science and math. (Daily News)
• The principal of the Bronx’s I.S. 232 is being investigated for allegedly threatening teachers. (Daily News)
• Michael Benjamin: Democratic candidates’ criticism of Eva Moskowitz shows that they lack vision. (Post)
• A handful of parents and staff members started a hunger strike for safe schools in Philadelphia. (Inquirer)
• An advocacy group offers a critical report about teacher training as programs are ranked. (HuffPo, WSJ)

• The Educational Justice Political Action Committee, a parent group, endorsed Bill de Blasio. (GS in Brief)
• A Portland, Ore., high school principal is returning to New York as an achievement coach. (Oregonian)
• The city has redesigned more than 50 playgrounds to encourage imaginative and creative play. (WSJ)
• The “faulty logic of the ‘math wars’” is that skills are required for creative math thinking. (The Stone)
• An argument to improve educational attainment by redirecting subsidies from the well-off. (Opinionator)
• In the remake of “Boy Meets World,” Corey is a seventh-grade New York City history teacher. (Gawker)
• Students at The Equity Project Charter School are bigger than they were four years ago. (Times)
• Carol Burris says her close read of New York City’s teacher evaluation plan raises concerns. (DR’s Blog)
• View every city high school’s graduation rate, charted over time, in one place. (WNYC/SchoolBook)

New York City’s four-year graduation rate fell slightly last year, from 60.9 percent to 60.4 percent, State Education Commissioner John King announced this morning in Albany.

King’s announcement, to the Board of Regents during its monthly meeting, set the stage for a press conference that Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Dennis Walcott have called for this afternoon. The annual graduation rate announcement is typically a festive occasion for the mayor, who has staked his education legacy in large part on increased numbers of students finishing high school each year.

But last year, when the city’s graduation rate flattened (showing a 0.1 point decline) after several years of steady growth, Bloomberg acknowledged that tougher graduation requirements could put pressure on the city’s graduation rate.

Students who entered high school in 2008 were the first required to earn a Regents diploma by passing five Regents exams with a 65 or higher. The less rigorous local diploma option, which for years helped prop up the city’s overall graduation numbers, disappeared, a change that critics said would leave thousands of students at risk of dropping out. (more…)

• The city has doled out scarce discipline to principals in recent years, even when there were issues. (Post)
• Stuyvesant HS’s student body elections are in turmoil after the winner was disqualified. (GothamSchools)
• The city plans to trim down Long Island City High School so another school can move in. (Daily News)
• Six percent of city teachers got “ineffective” scores on a part of new ratings. (GothamSchools, WSJ, Post)
• A Brooklyn college counselor who helped students after Superstorm Sandy is up for a prize. (Daily News)
• The city dropped plans to raze and redevelop P.S. 191 and P.S. 199′s sites. (Times, NY1, SchoolBook)
• State Sen. Jeff Klein wants cameras near schools to cut down on speeding drivers. (Times, Daily News)
• Fewer applicants for gifted programs received offers this year. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook, NY1)
• Sol Stern: The next mayor can make a deal with the UFT without pandering, on test scores. (Daily News)
• Students who thrive at low-performing high schools often face a tough road in college. (Washington Post)
• Long Island students reporting a newspaper story about school security ended up under arrest. (Times)
• The International Baccalaureate curriculum, designed for ex-pats, is increasingly popular at home. (WSJ)
• Chicago’s schools budget aims to lay off 850 teachers and other workers. (AP, Sun-Times, Tribune)
• Chicago is also planning to hire 600 people to protect students on their new routes to school. (AP)
• Philadelphia’s deep budget cuts means most schools are set to have no support staff at all. (Times)

• A venture capitalist says it’s good to support all schools, so he’s fundraising for I.S. 318. (Fred Wilson)
• An education observer takes a look at the links between hedge funds and charter schools. (Commonal)
• In a new study, economist Roland Fryer found little value in inspirational messages for teens. (Betabeat)
• A proposal, in Spanish, for the city to raise $74 million by charging rent to charter schools. (El Diario)
• A City Council hopeful cheers the city’s decision not to demolish P.S. 199 and P.S. 191. (Marc Landis)
• No teachers from Queens made the cut in the city’s first round of Big Apple Awards. (Queens Chronicle)
• Brooklyn’s High School for Public Service grows vegetables and flowers on its Youth Farm. (GS in Brief)
• The group that brought us “The Irreplaceables” profiles new teachers it says will be great forever. (TNTP)
• Hofstra professor Alan Singer takes a look at who Charlotte Danielson is and why she matters. (HuffPo)

A chart prepared by the Department of Educations shows the proportion of children screened for gifted programs who were deemed eligible, applied, and were offered a seat in a program in the last three years. The department offered seats in gifted programs to fewer applicants this year than in the past.

A smaller proportion of applicants to city gifted programs this year will get good news in placement letters that the city mailed today, nearly a month after it was originally supposed to notify families. (more…)

The most email newsletter of Democracy Prep Public Schools touted Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations secretary general, as the speaker for the charter network’s first high school graduation ceremony. He joins dozens of other prominent people who will appear at city schools’ graduations this month.

The secretary general of the United Nations joins luminaries in media, the arts, and public service as speakers at city graduation ceremonies this month.

Ban Ki-Moon will speak June 24 at Democracy Prep Charter High School, which is graduating its first class this year. Recruiting the graduation speaker was a feather in the cap for Seth Andrew, the charter network’s founding director, who is stepping down at the end of the month.

Among the many Ray Kelly, the city’s police commissioner, and Salvatore Cassano, the fire department commissioner, are each speaking at high schools with a focus on public safety. A Baltimore Ravens football player will speak at a Manhattan school that serves many transfer students. And in a coup that is likely to excite teachers, Jad Abumrad, host of NPR’s “Radiolab,” is speaking June 24 at Lyons Community School in Brooklyn.  (more…)

New York City teachers fared slightly better than teachers in the rest of the state on metrics that will now factor into their annual ratings.

In the city, 8 percent of teachers received ratings of “highly effective” on their state growth scores for the 2011-2012 school year, compared to 6 percent in the rest of the state, according to data that the city released today. Another 76 percent of city teachers netted “effective” ratings, compared to 77 percent in the rest of the state. (more…)