GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is set to propose making kindergarten mandatory. (WSJ)
• Two families are suing so they can send non-vaccinated children to school with sick classmates. (WNYC)
• Parents at Flushing’s P.S. 201 are angry a worksheet asked children to spell “gun” and “rob.” (NY1, Post)
• The city took two school closures off the list late Wednesday. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook, NY1, WSJ)
• Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement plan to try to disrupt the closure votes. (NY1)
• Citing MDRC, the Times endorses efforts to replace large high schools with small, specialized ones.
• A father affiliated with the group Education Reform Now says he supports the closure plans. (Post)
• The investigation deepened into the school aide accused of sex crimes. (Times, Daily News, WSJ, Post)
• A suit aims to stop a Success Academy charter school from coming to Cobble Hill. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• A Catholic girls school with a top basketball team will close due to enrollment. (Post, Daily News, NY1)
• At Paul Robeson High School, which is phasing out, students eat lunch at 2:01 p.m. (GothamSchools)
• Some say Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is the only reason an ex-legislator got a state ed job. (Post)
• A Bronx principal is throwing a gala to celebrate the school’s progress report grade jump. (Daily News)
• Baltimore teachers are reporting higher-than-usual numbers of low mid-year evaluations. (Baltimore Sun)
• The Obama administration is set to announce a first round of 10 No Child Left Behind waivers. (WSJ)
• A study of Chicago’s recent school “turnaround” efforts found evidence of improvement. (Tribune)

• The state and NYSUT appeared in court in their still-open battle over teacher evaluations. (Times-Union)
• A P.S. 243 school aide allegedly filmed himself molesting students. (Times, Post, Daily News, NY1, WSJ)
• A poll finds mixed feelings on Bloomberg’s school policies. (GothamSchools, Times, Daily News, Post)
• A school facing a closure vote on Thursday, Grace Dodge High, has 11 technical programs. (NY1)
• Charter school parents traveled to Albany to ask for inclusion on local parent councils. (GothamSchools)
• The Bronx principal found to have used school funds for herself was charged with larceny. (Daily News)
• A teen who arrived at FDR High illiterate at 18 is set to graduate after intensive help. (GothamSchools)
• Some students skipped school to help celebrate the Giants’ Super Bowl victory. (GothamSchools, Times)
• Michael Goodwin: Gov. Cuomo shouldn’t wait any longer to start over on teacher evaluations. (Post)
• Two reformers say the only solution on evaluations is to give districts a strict deadline. (Daily News)
• The Daily News calls for the teacher who criticized students on Facebook to be un-reinstated.
• Boston handed out $400,000 in teacher bonuses this year, based on school-wide assessments. (Globe)
• California could cut a year-old transitional kindergarten meant to boost school-readiness. (L.A. Times)

• Rochester wants to speed schools’ closures because students are foundering. (Democrat & Chronicle)
• The city will appeal a judge’s order that it rehire a teacher who complained about students. (Daily News)
• After school programs that provide child care and GED classes are on the chopping block. (Daily News)
• A poll found wide support for Gov. Cuomo’s approach to new teacher evaluations. (GothamSchools)
• Another look at Manhattan Theatre Lab, an arts school that is facing a closure vote on Thursday. (NY1)
• Latinos worry that if P.S. 19 vanishes, so will Roberto Clemente’s name. (GothamSchools/El Diario)
• Every teacher is being removed from an L.A. school roiled by sex abuse charges. (L.A. Times, Times, AP)
• Detroit is set to name 10 schools it will turn over to state management in a new district. (Free Press)

News from New York City:

• Michael Winerip: Sub-literate essays can earn passing scores on the state’s Regents exams. (Times)
• A DOE contract with a company started by a former employee is raising eyebrows. (Daily News)
• The city is still trying to fire a teacher who retired last year after being found guilty of sex talk. (Post)
• Parents at P.S. 189 say kindergarteners were allowed to engage in sexual touching in class. (Post)
• Students from 45 public and private schools participated in a science fair at Grover Cleveland HS. (NY1)
• Educators and experts say Dominican students’ long absences are culturally bound. (GothamSchools)
• Parents, students, and activists say they will protest Thursday’s vote on school closures. (Daily News)
• One of the schools, Samuel Gompers High School, offers vocational training. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• Another school, P.S. 14, would be Staten Island’s first school closure under Mayor Bloomberg. (NY1)
• The Post blames potential disruptions at Thursday’s PEP meeting on the UFT and Occupy Wall Street.
• Among three schools opening on Staten Island next year is one set to be zer0-energy. (S.I. Advance)
• Students earned $250 selling pot-laced brownies to classmates at I.S. 208 in Queens. (Daily News)
• A columnist notes that Gov. Cuomo first derailed a state deal on teacher evaluations. (Times-Union)
• The Daily News says Cuomo must insist on a slate of evaluations conditions as his deadline nears.

And elsewhere:

• Cami Anderson proposal for a New York City-inspired reform plan in Newark is drawing fire. (WSJ)
• The governor of Connecticut is set to propose more charter schools and more money for them. (WSJ)
• A Pennsylvania district says it is being put out of business by a “charter school on steroids.” (Times)
• A reform group that has done “turnarounds” in 19 Chicago schools is earning mixed grades. (Tribune)
• The backlash against Texas’s high-stakes accountability system appears to be growing steam. (Times)
• No data support La. Gov. Bobby Jindal’s plan to expand a school voucher program. (Times-Picayune)
• More on the controversial pro-charter school video that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is in. (Times)

• Facebook’s public IPO offering won’t increase the size of Newark’s gift from the site’s founder. (WSJ)
• The city’s budget plan insulates schools, but questions remain. (GothamSchools, NY1, SchoolBook)
• The city says it is planning again not to replace teaching positions lost through attrition. (WNYC)
• A charter school’s bid to change its kindergarten age cutoff was reversed under fire. (Queens Chronicle)
• Harbor School students were affected by a Civil War cannonball’s discovery on Governor’s Island. (Post)
• Some churches and others are seeking legislation to let churches continue to meet in schools. (Times)
• Parents at Brooklyn’s P.S. 161 are planning a one-day boycott to protest closure plans. (GothamSchools)
• The principal of Wadleigh Secondary School is leaving amid the school’s closure fight. (GothamSchools)

• Large schools in the city, which include many of the most elite, are worried about their survival. (Times)
• New data show student results at schools that closed. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook, NY1, Daily News)
• Citing philosophical differences, Pedro Noguera has resigned from SUNY’s charter school board. (WSJ)
• SUNY officials: Underprepared high school grads cost the system $70 million a year. (Times-Union)
• The principals union chief panned the city’s turnaround plans. (GothamSchools, SB, Daily News, Post)
• So did Michael Mulgrew, head of the United Federation of Teachers, in new detail. (GothamSchools)
• The Post says state ed chief John King should discard Mulgrew’s and Logan’s letters in his “circular file.”
• Diane Ravitch urged city principals to join a protest against the state’s evaluation law. (GothamSchools)
• Students staged a walkout and protest against the city’s planned school closures. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• Students defended faltering Academy of Business and Community Development. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• Discovery High School in the Bronx closed an urban farming program beloved by students. (Daily News)

• Chancellor Walcott cut short a town hall meeting in the Bronx after students protested. (Daily News)
• Mayoral candidates took aim at school closure policies. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook, Daily News)
• The advocacy group NYCAN said not settling on new evaluations would cost the state $1.7 billion. (AP)
• A campaign against a teacher who is being paid without working calculates his property holdings. (Post)
• A bid to fire the teacher ended because the city didn’t produce sufficient evidence against him. (Post)
• The case of George Washington HS’s baseball coach shows that the appeals process has merit. (Times)
• Students at Alfred E. Smith High School were arrested for trying to bring a gun inside. (Post, Daily News)
• Frank Jump, a teacher at Brooklyn’s P.S. 119, is an author, archaeologist, and AIDS activist. (Daily News)
• More on Cambria Heights Academy parents’ fight to prevent the school’s relocation. (Daily News)
• Lehman High School is one of 33 schools that could close and reopen under “turnaround.” (Daily News)
• Former Assemblyman Michael Benjamin: What the city needs is a voucher program for special ed. (Post)
• Connecticut’s education chief is trying to use the state’s NCLB waiver to force policy changes. (WSJ)
• The Obama administration wants schools to transition to using e-textbooks by 2017. (USA Today)

• An initial review of NCLB waivers finds that states didn’t offer steep enough accountability promises. (AP)
• A report by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio finds problems with CTE schools. (GothamSchools, NY1)
• The city is lobbying Gov. Andrew Cuomo to change the state’s teacher evaluation law. (GS, Post, WSJ)
• Mayor Bloomberg sighed over a teacher who is earning a salary but not working in a classroom. (Post)
• A State Senate committee approved a bill to let houses of worship meet in school buildings. (Daily News)
• A Chelsea mother has emerged as a vocal ally for closing schools, from inside them. (GothamSchools)
• A Brownsville youth court allows adolescents to avoid jail in favor of restorative justice. (Daily News)
• The Wall Street Journal praises Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s aggressive school reform plan.
• Jindal is pushing school vouchers, tenure reform, and charter schools in a speech. (Times-Picayune)

• Chancellor Dennis Walcott has told selective schools to take more students with disabilities. (Daily News)
• A report by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio outlines problems with the city’s vocational schools. (WSJ)
• The percentage of freshmen at CUNY’s community colleges who needed remediation rose to 82.7. (Post)
• The city is eyeing a loophole to let it replace fewer teachers at turnaround schools. (GothamSchools)
• The number of schools the city is trying to close this year, 62, is far more than in past years. (NY1)
• Parents at Queens’ P.S. 118 want their principal fired for shutting them out. (Daily News, Post)
• A large march this weekend protested the city’s eviction of churches from schools. (Daily News, NY1)
• A 66-year-old teacher who went from the rubber room to an administrative job is refusing to retire. (Post)
• Teachers at I.S. 49 used tech tricks to find an iPhone a student had picked off a teacher’s desk. (Post)
• A Bronx principal is being sued over unwanted advances she made against one of her teachers. (Post)
• A Sheepshead Bay High School teacher resigned after allegedly making lewd comments. (Daily News)
• A school aide at Beach Channel High School was charged with statutory rape of a student. (Daily News)
• The founders of Educators 4 Excellence argue that Gov. Cuomo is working on teachers’ behalf. (Post)
• The Staten Island Advance says the planned closure of P.S. 14 shouldn’t be blamed on the community.
• The Daily News says last week’s report proves that restarting struggling schools from scratch is ideal.
• Many elite city private schools are approaching $40,000 a year in tuition and fees. (Times)
• One of the country’s few remaining one-room schools, in Montana, enrolls just one student. (Times)
• Michael Winerip visits the inspiration for a classic of children’s lit, Dr. Seuss’s “Mulberry Street.” (Times)
• Los Angeles’s proposed school budget would eliminate all funding for adult education. (L.A. Times)

• Chelsea High School, left out of “turnaround” plans, is worrying about losing federal funds. (Times)
• The principal of Jane Addams High School has resigned. (GothamSchools, Daily News, SchoolBook)
• A hearing about the city’s plan to close a Harlem middle school drew fire. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook)
• A requirement that the city try to help teachers before firing them ended some termination bids. (Post)
• One of the teachers the city tried but failed to fire left students unattended in darkened classroom. (Post)
• An English teacher at James Madison High School was suspended for misspelling words. (Post)
• The Post says the teachers’ cases all show that arbitrators shouldn’t weigh in on poor evaluations. (Post)
• This spring, Pace University education students will practice instruction on avatars. (Downtown Express)
• Some families remain upset about the city’s rezoning plans for Lower Manhattan. (Downtown Express)
• Townspeople aren’t happy about a student’s push to have a prayer removed from her R.I. school. (Times)
• President Obama is set to propose tying colleges’ federal aid to whether they help students. (Times)