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An education advocacy group launched by Chancellor Joel Klein and the Reverend Al Sharpton over two years ago has lost its director and faces an uncertain future.

Unveiled in 2008 in Washington D.C., the Education Equality Project was intended to influence discussion of education policy in the presidential election. (Remember those wars — manufactured or not — within the Democratic party?) It was also a way for Klein to broadcast his views on a national scale, much like former D.C. schools superintendent Michelle Rhee is doing with her new advocacy group, StudentsFirst.

After Arne Duncan was named Secretary of Education, EEP seemed to lose steam. Now comes news (via edReformer) that EEP director Ellen Winn is leaving for a job at 50CAN, where she’ll be in charge of expanding the education advocacy group’s work beyond Connecticut.

Winn’s departure was expected, said Democrats for Education Reform Executive Director Joe Williams, who is on EEP’s board, but the group hasn’t found a replacement for her yet. Williams said the board hasn’t met for several months. (more…)

Rev. Al Sharpton (Via Creative Commons)

Rev. Al Sharpton is scheduled to host a key critic of mayoral control on his radio show tomorrow morning, in what will be the same talk that he postponed last week.

The importance of parental input in decisions about public schools will be a main topic, said Zakiyah Ansari, a parent organizer and member of the Campaign for Better Schools who will be Sharpton’s guest. A press notice about the talk says that Sharpton will join Ansari in calling on state lawmakers to build parental input into a new school governance law.

Ansari told me on the phone today that she hopes to form a “partnership” with Sharpton on the issue, though she said she’s not sure exactly what such a collaboration would entail.

Sharpton has previously said that he clashes with a more concrete partner of his, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, on the issue of mayoral control, favoring more checks and balances than Klein. The two together formed the Education Equality Project, a national advocacy network that pushes changes to public schools of the sort Klein has promoted in New York City.

But this could all get trickier if Sharpton ends up formalizing a partnership with Ansari’s group, too. The thing to watch will be exactly what kinds of changes to the 2002 mayoral control law Sharpton endorses.

Details on tomorrow’s radio show are below the jump: (more…)

Rev. Al Sharpton invited one of the strongest opponents of mayoral control onto his live radio broadcast tomorrow morning.

This is not the first time the reverend has publicly distanced himself from Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s support for mayoral control. In April, at a conference for their shared group, the Education Equality Project, Sharpton ceded the floor to Assemblyman Charles Barron, who called for ending mayoral control of the schools. (Barron also called for Mayor Bloomberg to fire Klein.) Sharpton said he invited Barron because he wants the Education Equality Project to “hear all views.”

The appearance was postponed late this afternoon in light of the recent police shooting. Instead, Sharpton will devote his radio broadcast to a vigil for the slain officer and will address mayoral control at a later date. (more…)

We’ve said in the past that our long-term plan is to expand our Community section to include more voices. Today we’re taking a step in that direction with a contribution from Pedro Noguera, the New York University professor and co-chair of the Broader, Bolder project (the one that clashes with Rev. Al Sharpton and Chancellor Joel Klein’s Education Equality Project).

Noguera argues that David Brooks’ recent New York Times column on the Harlem Children’s Zone drew the wrong conclusion:

In most cases, these schools succeed not because they impart middle class values, (there is very little evidence that the middle class is the only group that values hard work and courteous behavior) but because of high academic expectations and a clear, coherent approach to educating children. Most importantly, these schools succeed because they also address social, health and psychological needs of the children and families they serve.

Read Noguera’s full commentary here. And please feel free to send your own commentaries. We’re building the Community section up slowly, but we are building it up.

This piece of news slipped through the cracks last month, but it seems newly relevant in light of Mayor Bloomberg’s visit to the Oval Office yesterday: In the wake of gushing visits by Arne Duncan, Obama’s new education secretary, to New York City schools, Betsy Gotbaum, the city’s public advocate, sent Duncan a cautionary note last month.

“While we both agree generally that the Mayor should retain control of the school system, I would caution against focusing too much on the data provided by the Department of Education,” Gotbaum wrote to Duncan in a letter dated April 27. “I have always said that it is a fundamental flaw that the current system gives the Mayor and the Chancellor an incentive to present information in a positive light.”

Gotbaum, who first reported the letter on her blog, enclosed a copy of the report on school governance that she commissioned and the accompanying book, which was published by the Brookings Institution.

For what it’s worth, a slightly curious thing about the visit to D.C. yesterday is that only three men entered the Oval Office with President Obama: the Rev. Al Sharpton; Newt Gingrich, the former House majority leader, and Michael Bloomberg. Joel Klein, who is a co-creator of the Education Equality Project with Sharpton, appeared later with the men outside the White House to speak to reporters, but he did not enter the Oval Office.

Gotbaum’s full letter is after the jump:

(more…)

Mayor Bloomberg will meet with President Obama this afternoon at the Oval Office to talk about the achievement gap. The meeting, which also includes the Rev. Al Sharpton and Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House majority leader, adds to signs suggesting that Obama is taking the Education Equality Project group’s stance on how to improve public schools seriously.

A spokesman for Chancellor Joel Klein, David Cantor, said that the group will discuss “education reform, in particular how best to address the racial achievement gap.”

The Washington Post reported that Sharpton, who along with Klein is a co-founder of EEP, requested the meeting.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said that Klein attended the meeting at the Oval Office. He did not, though he did appear with the group later outside the White House.

UPDATE: Ben Smith at Politico’s take is that the meeting is “a way for the administration to signal openness to a range of voices on the topic” of education. Seems to me it’s just the opposite, because — believe it or not — at this point Sharpton, Bloomberg, and Gingrich are actually on the same page about education. (more…)

The city Department of Education is spared the worst of city agencies’ impending budget cuts, according to the executive budget proposal released by Mayor Bloomberg today for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Lots of city agencies are being asked to fire employees, and spending citywide on capital projects has been slashed by 27 percent, Bloomberg said at a briefing for reporters about the plan today. On the other hand, he said, “We have a school system that we are putting more money in than we did last year.” The budget proposed today includes $10,810,000 in city funds for public schools. By the end of the current fiscal year, according to budget documents distributed today, the DOE will have received $10,462,000 in city funds. 

The DOE is being asked merely not to replace teachers who leave, not outright fire teachers, Bloomberg said. Plus, he said, federal stabilization money will allow the DOE to escape the deep cuts in capital funds that other city agencies are experiencing. Although the new capital plan is smaller than the one that is now ending, the DOE is being spared the 27 percent capital budget reduction that other agencies are set to experience. Whether the DOE would be included in a citywide reduction in capital spending had been an open question.

Responding to a reporter’s question about cuts to other agencies that could impede their ability to help needy New Yorkers, Bloomberg cited the philosophy of his chancellor, Joel Klein. “You’re never going to fix poverty until you fix public education,” Bloomberg said.

“I’m always happy to hear the mayor adopt my philosophy,” Klein told me when I asked him what he thought about hearing the philosophy he has promoted as the founder of the Education Equality Project being used to explain cuts in city services that some have called “ruthless.”

Klein sounded less sanguine when discussing the school budget picture. (more…)

When he knows what he wants, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan doesn’t mess around.

Just yesterday, the Post reported as an exclusive Duncan’s endorsement of mayoral control for New York City, which is up for renewal before the end of June. Today, in an unusual assertion of federal power in local politics, Duncan told a forum of mayors that he would have their backs in their fight to win control of their cities’ schools. From an AP article that was just filed:

“I’ll come to your cities,” Duncan said. “I’ll meet with your editorial boards. I’ll talk with your business communities. I will be there.”

Mayoral control is set to take center stage at a convention later this week sponsored by the Joel Klein-headed Education Equality Project. Duncan, who ran Chicago’s schools for more than seven years under the control of Mayor Richard Daley, is delivering the opening speech.

Michelle Rhee touted her red-track/green-track teacher pay proposal last night at Pace University, saying it’s made such a splash that Mayor Bloomberg asked Chancellor Joel Klein if they could bring a similar model to New York. The proposal, which is being negotiated with the D.C. teachers union right now, would award some first-year teachers nearly $40,000 raises in exchange for giving up their tenure rights — while others could choose a “red” path where they retain tenure but are paid less.

Rhee said the model came up in a recent chat with Klein, who she said she speaks to regularly to share “best practices” and to commiserate. Klein told her that Mayor Bloomberg had asked if they could bring the red/green plan to New York. “Apparently Klein said to him, ‘Not even you have enough money to do all of that in New York City,’” she said. Rhee’s plan, if passed, will be financed by private philanthropy for the first five years, she said.

A spokesman for the Department of Education, David Cantor, said the story is true.

Rhee spent part of her talk referencing the divide within the Democratic Party, where some education experts argue focus should be on improving schools and schools alone and others push for a broader focus. Rhee, who is firmly in the first camp, along with Klein, explained her objections to the second group by describing her experience as a second-year teacher. (more…)

In the spirit of transparency, here is this week’s Principals’ Weekly, the newsletter Chancellor Joel Klein sends to principals alerting them to policy updates every week.

In his opening note, Klein tells principals why he went to Washington, D.C., on Monday for the Education Equality Project. He said he’s “calling out for our nation’s attention”:

Addressing the achievement gap and helping our students graduate from our schools ready for college or work is not a frill or an extra; these steps are fundamental necessities.