GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivered a victory speech last night promising, among other things, that the city’s schools would see even more changes in his third term.

“If you think you’ve seen progress over the last eight years, I’ve got news for you, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” the mayor whooped, his face flush with triumph.

Despite these declarations, many observers wonder if the mayor’s greatest overhaul of the city’s schools isn’t already behind him. The last eight years have seen Bloomberg win mayoral control of schools, wrestle work rule concessions out of the teachers union in 2005, and give principals power over how they apportion their budgets. The mayor has staked his claim to a third term on the idea that he needs more time to transform the schools, but whether he’ll add a few touch-ups or knock down walls is the subject of intense speculation.

Some, like executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, Joe Williams, believe the mayor will make good on his promise of delivering more of the same, and therein lies the problem. (more…)

A number of privately-financed education programs have turned public in recent years, the latest example being Chancellor Klein’s move to create a new, taxpayer-financed principal-training program modeled on the New York City Leadership Academy.

Is something similar in store for Harvard economist Roland Fryer’s motivation programs, which pay students for good attendance, behavior, and grades? Fryer first piloted this kind of program here in New York, and is now testing the idea in multiple cities through the philanthropically-funded Educational Innovation Laboratory.

Chester Finn, head of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, estimates it could take $187.5 million for Chicago to scale up the program to all middle school students. Following his lead, I calculated how much it would cost New York to pay every middle school student a cash reward every two weeks based on their school performance.

With slightly fewer than 200,000 students in middle school grades, the city could wind up spending nearly $300 million per year if all students earned the full $1,500 being offered in the Washington, D.C.’s program. Even if each middle school student earned only $500, the going rate for good test scores in New York, it could still cost almost $100 million annually.

What kind of results would Fryer have to show to justify the expense, I wonder?