GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• The UFT may spend in the “high seven figures” in the mayoral race, a Mulgrew profile reports. (Observer)
• Campaigning in 2001, Bloomberg made headlines when he said he supported prayer in school. (WSJ)
• The latest bill to change No Child Left Behind would keep tests, but add portfolios and flexibility. (Times)
• A proposal to de-zone an upper Manhattan district is meeting resistance from parents. (Daily News)
• Chancellor Walcott sparred with council members at a budget hearing. (GothamSchools, NY1, News)
• The city expects to spend $1 billion on charter schools next year, a 25 percent hike. (GothamSchools)
• About 100 rowdy Brooklyn yeshiva students on spring break were kicked off a plane. (Times, Post, AP)
• StudentsFirst NY’s Glen Weiner chimes in on the city evaluation plan with a ringing endorsement. (Post)
• As usual, John King took questions from reporters. But in a twist, they were students. (GothamSchools)
• A student lit a classmate’s hair on fire during a dispute outside of their school in Brooklyn. (Daily News)
• New Jersey’s education commissioner scratched plans for the state’s first virtual charter schools. (AP)

• Mayoral candidates’ education views are informed by their experiences as parents and students. (Times)
• Only a quarter of students at the city’s new tech high schools are girls. (Daily News, GothamSchools)
• We broke down the points of dispute over evaluations and who “won” in the end. (GothamSchools 1, 2)
• Some teachers will be rated in part on their school’s scores on tests in subjects they don’t teach. (Post)
• The Daily News says State Education Commissioner John King mostly got the evaluation plan right.
• Critics of standardized testing say they are feeling sentiments shift in the city and beyond. (SchoolBook)
• Michael Powell: City Catholic school teachers are being hung out to dry as their schools close. (Times)
• Gov. Cuomo gave competitive grants to few school districts and distributed less than planned. (Gannett)

The big news:

• The city has a new evaluation plan. (GothamSchools, WSJ, Times, Post, Daily News, NY1, SchoolBook)
• The new evaluation systems will require annual assessments in all subjects, even art and P.E. (Times)
• The Bloomberg administration is citing the state-imposed plans as a triumph. (GothamSchools 1, 2)
• Union chiefs also said, at least at first, that they were happy with what the state set. (GothamSchools)
• But the plan could be rolled back or revised as soon as a new mayor takes office in seven months. (WSJ)
• Other districts that got new evaluation systems earlier say the experience has been frustrating. (WSJ)
• Only some elements of the new plan were a surprise, as others were set in law. (GothamSchools, Post)
• The Post says the UFT is the big loser, with many of its requests turned down by state ed chief John King.
• The head of Educators 4 Excellence in New York says there’s lots to praise in the new systems. (Post)
• The Post also says finding out if the plans work will take a while, but charter schools can help until then.
• In Colorado, some schools are under scrutiny after they gave out lots of strong evaluations. (Denver Post)

In other news:

• Nine in 10 city school buildings have at least one outstanding building code violation. (Daily News)
• The principals of I.S. 313 and I.S. 339 in the Bronx quashed a student-led anti-bullying group. (DNA Info)
• Singer Billy Joel visited Frank Sinatra High School of the Arts as a surprise guest on Thursday. (AP)
• Parents say the ex-principal of P.S. 194, where a student was assaulted, was irresponsible. (Daily News)
• The city will spend about $170,000 per student on a new elementary school building in Chelsea. (Post)
• M.S. 74 in Queens came together as a community around spelling-bee champ Arvind Mahankali. (WSJ)
• Hazel Dukes of the local NAACP is among the opponents of abolishing zones in District 5. (Daily News)
• The Daily News plans to launch awards for educators because so often stories about them are negative.
• Some Staten Island schools could get local “slow zones” aimed at boosting traffic safety. (S.I. Advance)
• Illinois legislators are considering doing away with special education class size rules. (Chicago Tribune)

• M.S. 74 student Arvind Mahankali won the national spelling bee. (Daily News, Times, Post, AP, NY1)
• The number of homeless students in city schools has continued to rise — in some cases, sharply. (Post)
• The city’s shorter-than-usual summer session means high schoolers can’t earn as many credits. (Post)
• A long-percolating plan to de-zone Manhattan’s District 6 will be aired publicly next week. (Daily News)
• The city can release parent council election results after a it won a suit against the votes. (SchoolBook)
• A task force proposed strategies for reducing reliance on suspensions. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook)
• State officials will release the city’s teacher evaluation plan Saturday at 4 p.m. (GS in Brief, Daily News)
• The Daily News says John King must give New York City a tougher plan than any other district has.
• A principal who is starting a charter school says her experience proves change is needed. (Daily News)
• A Brooklyn grandmother protested the animal nicknames a charter school used for buses. (Daily News)
• A mother who says students at P.S. 194 forced her son to perform oral sex is suing the city. (Daily News)
• Louisiana schools chief John White deflected charges of inflating schools’ grades. (Times-Picayune)

• Just three states originally billed as participants in the InBloom student database are still in. (Reuters)
• Schools and districts find it easier to raise high-need students’ scores in math than in reading. (Times)
• At schools that are phasing out, courses and programs dwindle as the student body does. (SchoolBook)
• Testimony starts today in the process that will yield a teacher evaluation system. (GothamSchools, Post)
• Principals have been training this spring for new evaluations, and teachers come next. (SchoolBook)
• Bob McManus: If the UFT ultimately threatens to sue, state ed chief John King did the right thing. (Post)
• The New York Times endorses recommendations of a new report on curbing suspensions in city schools.
• Mayoral hopeful Sal Albanese, a former teacher, says he is his own education advisor. (GothamSchools)
• The head of Educators 4 Excellence-NY lists what he says city teachers want from the next mayor. (Post)
• Eva Moskowitz: Charter school critics know this is their last chance to slow the schools. (Daily News)
• The State University of New York system will put some classes online through Coursera. (Times, AP)
• Los Angeles is pairing students with disabilities with non-disabled peers on the basketball court. (WSJ)

• Labor leaders, including Michael Mulgrew at the UFT, are gearing up to push for back pay. (Daily News)
• DC-37, which represents 121,000 public workers, is endorsing John Liu for mayor today. (Daily News)
• Weiner made a splash in his education debate debut. (GothamSchools, Times, WSJ, Post, USA Today)
• A Fort Hamilton High School student resolutely plays volleyball despite having cancer. (Daily News)
• Classmates of the Queens 12-year-old who committed suicide rallied against bullying. (DNA Info)
• A former P.S. 208 teacher was acquitted of sexually abusing a 6-year-old student. (Daily News, Post)
• The Rye Brook school district in Westchester County markets itself to tuition-paying outsiders. (WSJ)
• California routinely does not educate inmates who are entitled to it. (Center for Investigative Reporting)
• Colorado’s highest court ended a long lawsuit by upholding the state’s school financing system. (ENC)

• City schools’ student newspapers have withered because of budget cuts and shifting priorities. (Times)
• Inside the Department of Education’s test kitchen, chefs develop healthy school lunches. (Daily News)
• Christine Quinn dropped out of an education debate set for tonight. (GothamSchools, Politicker, Post)
• A charter school hired a consultant who has been banned from working with city schools. (DNAInfo)
• Parents, students, and teachers have gotten creative to overcome the city’s ban on bake sales. (Times)
• The city’s school discipline code is set to include a new ban on electronic cigarettes. (Post, Daily News)
• Advocates for less punitive discipline say the latest code tweaks do not go far enough. (GothamSchools)
• The city wants to improve teacher retention by giving principals data about who leaves. (GothamSchools)
• An upstate student was suspended after tweeting criticism about his district’s budget. (Syracuse P-S)
• The Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies’ valedictorian was seriously affected by Sandy. (Post)
• The Horace Mann School apologized for past sex abuse by its teachers. (Times, WSJ, Post, Daily News)
• The Post equates Merryl Tisch’s chairing of Bill Thompson’s campaign with other corruption in Albany.
• A Brookings Institutionite says the city and UFT went “down a rabbit hole” on evaluations. (Daily News)
• The heads of a right-wing think tank say the Common Core is inappropriate and also not rigorous. (WSJ)
• A former Assembly higher ed committee chair says the Common Core will boost inequity. (Times Union)
• The New York Times says states should be free not to impose consequences for Common Core tests.
• The Times says schools should make physical education a core part of the curriculum, not an extra.
• And the Times says the City Council is misguided to want religious groups to be able to use schools.
• Texas lawmakers approved more charter schools and reduced state testing. (Dallas Morning News)

• The state is recruiting seniors at some high schools to pilot McGraw-Hill’s GED-like exam, for pay. (WSJ)
• Anthony Weiner set out support for co-locations and other school policies. (GothamSchools, SchoolBook)
• The UFT has not yet endorsed a mayoral candidate but has given its nod to 13 others. (GothamSchools)
• Students at Brooklyn’s J.H.S. 278 were arrested for releasing pepper spray in the cafeteria. (Daily News)
• As we reported, some principals are protesting state tests by not using scores in admission. (Daily News)
• The Panel for Educational Policy approved the school bus contracts that spurred the bus strike. (NY1)
• Gonzalez: A teacher and students are working to honor slaves buried in a park near their school. (News)
• A Bronx teacher is suing to get her job back after being fired over remarks that a student reported. (Post)
• A Long Island high school is disciplining students who used Facebook to share test answers. (Post)
• A marketing company is helping stage the prom of Sandy-struck Abraham Lincoln HS. (Daily News)

• A Queens 12-year-old committed suicide, citing bullying by I.S. 109 peers as a cause for distress. (Post)
• Chicago’s school board voted to close 49 schools, the most in a single year. (Tribune, Sun-Times, Times)
• City teachers discussed the mayoral candidates at the teachers union’s monthly meeting. (SchoolBook)
• As the UFT endorsement nears, former chief Randi Weingarten backs Bill Thompson. (GothamSchools)
• The latest entrant to the mayoral race, Anthony Weiner, has a spare education record. (GothamSchools)
• An appeals court backed the city’s firing of a teacher who offered good grades for support. (Daily News)
• The heads of City Year New York cite growing up in the Bronx as reasons they lead well. (Daily News)
• Community colleges are getting less federal funding, even as they enroll more students. (Times)
• Boston charter schools have higher test scores but lower graduation rates, a new study funds. (Globe)t
• Leaders in upstate districts where voters rejected school budgets say taxpayers are tired. (Times-Union)
• D.C. is requiring all teachers at two struggling schools to reapply for their jobs. (Washington Post)

• A divided City Council passed a resolution to allow religious groups to worship in schools. (News, WSJ)
• The state should pay students to take field tests, the council said in another resolution. (GothamSchools)
• Former Congressman Anthony Weiner officially announced that he’s running for mayor. (Times)
• Amid the wreckage and tragedy at Oklahoma schools were moments of educators’ heroism. (WSJ, Post)
• The city plans to remove PCB-filled light fixtures in schools by 2016. (GothamSchools, Times, Post, NY1)
• Sheepshead Bay HS was evacuated after an old science project was mistaken for a bomb. (Daily News)
• Students and professors at Teachers College protested Merryl Tisch’s commencement talk. (DNAInfo)
• Tisch said she doesn’t agree with Chancellor Dennis Walcott’s criticism of the mayoral candidates. (WSJ)
• A former teacher pled guilty to rape for having sex with a student and faces six months in prison. (News)
• Shuttered school buildings in Chicago threaten to take away a community outpost for many. (Times)
• Outside NYC, most school budgets passed: L.I., Lower Hud, Mid-Hudson, Cap. Region, Western, Central