GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

School officials outlined a plan to change the way city schools serve students with disabilities at a closed-door meeting this morning with special education advocates.

The plan’s first step: Telling schools they have to accept, and “embrace,” students with special needs.

“For too long, educating students with disabilities has meant separating them from their general education peers,” Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said in a statement. “Today we are building on the premise that every school must be able to educate the vast majority of these children.”

That premise represents a badly needed advance for the city schools, according to special education advocates.

“The principles in [the plan] are wonderful, but they’ve been law forever,” said Maggie Moroff, who coordinates the ARISE Coalition but was not speaking on the coalition’s behalf. “The overarching goals are exactly what they ought to be, it’s just that in my mind they’re not so novel.” (more…)

A frequent criticism of the Department of Education under Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is that it is run by lawyers and businessmen instead of by educators. In fact, the number of educators reporting to Klein quietly doubled in the last few months.

A recent issue of City Limits carried a story under the headline, “Teachers Missing at the Top.” Indeed, at the end of the last school year, just one quarter of the people reporting directly to Klein — two out of eight people — had extensive experience in city classrooms.

Now, after Klein replaced one top administrator with a former principal and added a new top-level position, four out of nine top administrators have extensive experience in city classrooms. The remaining five hold positions, such as in finance and legal affairs, that are unlikely to be occupied by educators in any school district, according to a department spokesman, David Cantor.

Asked about the shift by GothamSchools, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein called the new numbers “an interesting observation.” But he said he had not changed the way he chooses his deputies. (more…)

Special education advocates are giving early praise to recommendations released today that would transform schools’ approach to students with special needs. The recommendations, which Chancellor Joel Klein endorsed, center on integrating students with special needs into the city’s ongoing school reforms.

Garth Harries, a department official who is starting a new job in New Haven, Conn., on Monday, authored the recommendations following a months-long review of the city’s special education offerings conducted by

Actually implementing the plans will be left to a new top-level administrator who will be responsible for nearly a quarter of the system’s students. Laura Rodriguez, a longtime Bronx educator who currently heads one of the support organizations that principals can choose to join, will become the city’s first Chief Achievement Officer for Special Education and English Language Learners.

Rodriguez will be one of only seven people reporting directly to the chancellor, making the needs of nearly 250,000 disabled students and ELLs “visible and transparent at the cabinet level” for the first time, Klein said. (more…)