GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Nataly Lopez at her kindergarten graduation. (Courtesy of Lopez)

At 20 years old, Luis Saavedra has used his exhausting list of accomplishments — high school valedictorian, purple belt in taekwondo, track and field star, 3.8 GPA in college — to earn enough scholarships to pay nearly the entire amount of his school tuition.

Still, the Bronx resident’s plans to finish his bachelor’s degree at Lehman College and attend medical school will be impossible to achieve if his pool of scholarship aid dries up.

Like other undocumented students, Saavedra cannot rely on government financial assistance or on private bank loans.

But Saavedra, like many immigration reform advocates, hopes that President Barack Obama’s recent announcement to halt some deportations will push Gov. Andrew Cuomo to support New York’s version of the DREAM Act today, hours before the state’s legislative session ends. The act has languished in the State Senate without Republican support for more than a year.

Cuomo has said he supports a federal DREAM Act but has declined to endorse the state’s version and, unlike other elected officials, did not praise Obama’s policy announcement last week.

The state’s bill would give undocumented students access to financial aid through the state-funded Tuition Assistance Program, which provided $885 million to students in 2010-2011. Extending financial aid to undocumented students could cost about $17 million more, a 2 percent increase. (more…)

Just yesterday she was being cagey about her role in the Obama transition, but today Linda Darling-Hammond, the lightning-rod Stanford professor, was officially named head of Obama’s education policy working group.

The position is likely to be scrutinized by those who were looking for a sign of precisely where Obama will land in the Democratic Party’s raging debate over how to improve America’s public schools.

The thousands of people who have attached their names to an online petition supporting Darling-Hammond as a prospective Secretary of Education will likely embrace the news. They argue that she is “a key ingredient” to creating a “truly progressive public education system.”

But the news could also disappoint some in the education world who deeply oppose Darling-Hammond. (more…)

Where will Malia and Sasha Obama go to school after Inauguration Day?

At his first policy address as president-elect, Obama this afternoon said the family hasn’t yet decided where the girls will enroll. But he suggested that they will be looking farther afield than their neighborhood school. “Michelle will be scouting out some schools,” he said. “We’ll be making a decision about that in the future.”

In Chicago, the girls attend the progressive private school that’s affiliated with the University of Chicago. Many speculate that the Obamas will settle on an elite private school such as Sidwell Friends, which Chelsea Clinton attended. But D.C. schools chief Michelle Rhee has been angling for months for the First Family to pick one of her schools. Blogger Matt Iglesias reports that Sara Mead of the New America Foundation says Capital City Public Charter School, with a diverse population and convenient location, would be a good choice.