GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

IN NEW YORK:

• Schools graded D’s and F’s are more likely to have large black and Latino populations. (Daily News)
• To stop cheating, Stuyvesant might scan students for cell phones before final exams (New York Post)
• Geoffrey Canada starts a nonprofit to lobby for renewing mayoral control, with tweaks. (Daily News)
• Cynthia Nixon co-writes an op/ed saying the Center School fight is not dead yet. (Daily News)
• Joel Klein is in Australia today to tout a “revolution” planned for schools there. (Adelaide Now)
• Opposition to the Australia plan has Aussies criticizing New York City’s record of progress. (ABC)

AND BEYOND:

• Terry Moe hopes that Obama will side with his party’s rebels and fight teachers unions. (WSJ)
• Finding agreement on the federal role in schools will be a challenge for Obama. (Washington Post)
• Jay Mathews boosts a retiring Virginia superintendent for Secretary of Education. (Washington Post)
• 30% of superintendents are increasing class sizes to save money. (Christian Science Monitor)
• In San Diego, saving by exchanging central bureaucrats for outside consultants. (Voice of San Diego)
• High school homecoming dances are paring down because of the economy. (New York Times)
• The Georgia state schools superintendent is filing for bankruptcy. (Times)
• For the Obama girls, it’s Sidwell Friends, Chelsea Clinton’s private school. (Times)
• Meanwhile, in D.C. public schools, anti-prostitution lessons. (Washington Post)
• A move to raise math standards in Virginia. (Washington Post)

An adapted Obama poster used at last night's District 3 diversity rally.

An Upper West Side parent council last night put its stamp of approval on a plan to ease overcrowding in public schools there. But opponents of the plan, who have been criticizing it for the past two months as stamping out diversity, kept up their fight until the very end.

The council’s resolution means that two schools, the Anderson School and the Center School, will relocate to other buildings in the neighborhood next fall. In 2010, people living in three small sections of the neighborhood will be reassigned to different elementary schools. All that remains now is for the Department of Education to execute the changes.

Opponents of the resolution included both Center School parents who don’t want their school to move and advocates of diversity, who think the resolution will make schools in the area more segregated. Some of those parents rallied before the meeting yesterday.

(View a video from last night’s rally, during which speakers condemn Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and swear to keep fighting for diversity. Yes, “Sex and the City” actress Cynthia Nixon appears, but unlike in last week’s video, she has a non-speaking role.)

Before the council approved the resolution in a 7-1 vote, dozens of parents, neighborhood residents, and elected officials delivered one-minute speeches expressing their support or opposition. The speeches lasted more than an hour. (more…)

A resolution to move an Upper West Side middle school passed on Wednesday night, but not before Cynthia Nixon — “Sex and the City” actress, Alliance for Quality Education spokeswoman, and parent at the school — was shouted down briefly during a heated public comment session.

Nixon was stepping into a fight that has been raging on the Upper West Side for months. The fight began as a discussion about how to deal with overcrowding at public schools but has spiraled into a raging debate about class and race and privilege in Upper Manhattan. Confrontations have gotten incredibly emotional — and personal: On this site, a commenter posing as Cynthia Nixon’s fictional son, Brady, from “Sex and the City” accused his “mom” of hypocrisy. And parents at Nixon’s school, called the Center School, have charged another school’s parents with racism and class prejudice, citing postings from last January on the Urban Baby Web site that called Center School students “thugs.”

At issue is a plan that would move the Center School from its current home inside a larger elementary school on West 70th Street, PS 199. Supporters of the plan tout it as an easy way to relieve crowding at the elementary school, which is growing so quickly that parents fear it will not have room to hold their younger children. Opponents, including Nixon, argue that moving the Center School exacerbates segregation by race and class. (PS 199, a zoned school, is two-thirds white, while the Center School, which draws its students from throughout the district, is half white and has a higher proportion of black and Hispanic students.)

If the plan becomes official, which it almost certainly will after Wednesday’s vote, the Center School will move to another school building several blocks away. (more…)

On “Sex and the City,” they were BFFs, but when it comes to public school funding, Carrie Bradshaw and her red-headed, Brooklyn-bound buddy Miranda are more like frenemies.

Sarah Jessica Parker, who played Carrie, last week helped kick off Shop for Public Schools, an annual event thrown by the city’s star-powered Fund for Public Schools, which focuses on “attracting private investment in school reform.”

Chances are relying on shoppers to maintain school libraries might not sit too well with Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda — she’s the face of the Alliance for Quality Education, which since 2000 has fought for improved and equitable public funding for schools across the state. Last spring, Nixon took to the streets to protest the mayor’s proposed school budget cuts.