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Former Gates Foundation education director Tom Vander Ark is behind one charter school’s application to open in New York City next year.

For years, Vander Ark shaped the educational giving for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, overseeing grants the organization gave to cities that agreed to build small high schools. Now a partner at an education public affairs firm in California, Vander Ark has supported such causes as lifting New York State’s charter cap and bringing more and better technology into classrooms.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Education confirmed that Vander Ark is behind the application for Bedford Preparatory Charter School, a small high school school that, if approved, would open in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn next school year. (more…)

Earlier today I wrote about budget cuts at Tweed Courthouse, the Department of Education’s headquarters, which have somehow managed to coincide with an increase in staff there. David Cantor, the DOE press secretary, just called me to clarify some of what he told me about internal decisions.

I’ve updated the post to reflect the new intel, the juiciest bit of which I’ll paste here:

as the scope of the crisis was sinking in late last year, Chancellor Joel Klein ordered every department at headquarters — from teaching and learning to the press shop — to draw up a proposal under which it would cut 10% of its budget.

But the plans were precautionary to begin with. According to David Cantor, a DOE spokesman, every department hoped it wouldn’t have to make all of the cuts it proposed. As school officials began to get a sense of how much money they had available, they decided the full 10% across-the-line cut would not be necessary. Cuts happened according to a master priority list crafted by top school officials, who decided which programs should be the first to go and which should be the last.

From an invitation advertising the retreat.

Here’s an interesting picture of how things happen at the Department of Education.

A while ago, a source told me about a retreat he attended at a hotel in Westchester, where the Department of Education invited a bunch of education people — especially small school and charter school leaders — to a hotel for a two-day community-building experience.

An invitation had promised discussion of “The Future of Our Work,” including a run-down of the successes and challenges of the Bloomberg administration’s school efforts. Successes included the fast expansion of small and charter schools, which the invitation concluded are out-performing traditional district schools and the reorganization of the school system with “schools at the center.” Challenges included the financial “sustainability” of partner groups that assist the schools; the requirement of sharing facilities with traditional public schools; and “Human Capital development.”

There was also a lot of worrying about what is probably a bigger potential obstacle: The possibility that, come 2009, when the state Legislature votes on whether to keep, abolish, or alter mayoral control of the public schools, the system could be organized in a completely different way. There was no question on which side the Department of Education stood. At the end of the first day, a group that is fighting for the preservation of mayoral control of the public schools, but which has said it has no formal ties to the Bloomberg administration, spoke about its political plans. Chancellor Joel Klein also gave a speech passionately declaring that the successes that have happened would endangered if mayoral control was abolished. (more…)