Wilfredo Pagan has been appointed to represent the Bronx on the Panel for Educational Policy

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.’s office announced today that it has appointed Wilfredo Pagan to the Panel for Education Policy, just in time to represent the borough at tomorrow’s meeting.

Pagan, a lifelong Bronx resident, went to city schools himself and has sent six children to them. The parent association president at P.S. 50, he has belonged to the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council and the Citywide Council on High Schools. He said he has also attended past PEP meetings in his capacity as an involved public school parent.

“It’s a new experience as far as the role, but as far as how the Department of Education operates in certain areas, I have good experience with it,” Pagan said.

He is replacing Monica Major, who has served on the panel since October 2010 and has recently been tapped as Diaz’s director of education and youth services. (more…)

Reports that a Department of Education technology contractor improperly stole millions of dollars from the city are returning attention to the way the school system reviews contracts.

Building more oversight over contracts was one of the goals of the reauthorized mayoral control law passed by state lawmakers in 2009. The law handed review power of contracts to the Panel for Educational Policy, the citywide school board controlled by the mayor. But since 2009, several panel members have complained that they lack the information necessary to review contracts before approving them, making their oversight authority meaningless.

In the case of the contract with Future Technology Associates, the firm accused of fraud yesterday by the city schools investigator, panel members had less than a day to review detailed information about the contract before voting on it in September 2009, according to email messages obtained by GothamSchools. Officials shared the information in response to a request by the Manhattan representative on the panel, Patrick Sullivan.

The contract came up for a renewal vote at the first meeting of the PEP after the mayoral control reauthorization. In an email to Sullivan the day of the meeting, department General Counsel Michael Best cited reauthorization as motivating school officials to prepare more thorough background materials.

Sullivan, an opponent of the Bloomberg administration’s education policies, responded that those materials — which included a draft agreement between the city and Future Technology Associates — were not sufficient. He said that a day to review them was not enough time. (more…)

New chancellor Cathie Black made her debut at the Panel for Educational Policy tonight to a packed crowd that drowned out her remarks with boos and jeers — especially when Black mentioned the name of her new boss, Mayor Bloomberg.

“Let’s try to do this with some civility and decorum,” the panel’s chairman said as he introduced Black. Yet the crowd continued to shout and jeer, forcing Black to raise her voice as she delivered prepared remarks.

The remarks described what Black has learned on her tour of schools — “I’m seeing what makes an effective school leader and how a strong school culture can contribute to learning,” she said — and also named her priorities, including building a strong teacher evaluation system and empowering principals.

She also summarized the education agenda Bloomberg laid out in his State of the City address this morning. The mayor laid out a trio of changes tied to coming budget woes and projected teacher layoffs: legal changes to transform the way teachers are laid off; contractual changes to deflate the Absent Teacher Reserve pool of teachers on the payroll who don’t have formal positions; and reforms to the teacher pension plan to cut costs.

Hundreds of people packed Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene tonight for the panel meeting, including 80 who signed up to speak. The largest group includes teachers and students at the John Jay high school building in Park Slope who are protesting a plan to add an additional high school to the building.

(UPDATE: That plan passed the panel, with 11 members voting in favor. The panel members appointed by the Manhattan and Bronx borough presidents both abstained.)

When she began her remarks, Black praised the school board itself, offering a rare praise to the Panel for Education Policy, which has been belittled as a rubber stamp to the mayor by some and as an opportunity for political theater by others. ”This panel,” Black said, “has played a vital role in the major policy changes that have dramatically improved student outcomes in our city.”

Outgoing chancellor Joel Klein at his last Panel for Educational Policy meeting.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein vowed tonight that he will absolutely leave his position in January — even if efforts to block Mayor Bloomberg’s chosen successor succeed. Klein spoke at a meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy that held few distinctions except for the fact that it will be his last.

“I know it’s been controversial, but controversy is a necessary part of education,” Klein said, reflecting on his eight-plus years as chancellor. “I respect that, and I understand that when you do make changes and look at things differently that it’s going to upset people.”

He added, “I don’t know of any other way to change a system.”

The Panel for Educational Policy is the current incarnation of the city school board, formed in 2002 just as Mayor Bloomberg won control of the city schools and named Klein chancellor. Despite the historic circumstances, tonight’s meeting plugged along unremarkably, as many others have. Some protesting members of the public did attend, but they had a narrow issue in mind: opposition to the planned expansion of a small middle school in Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Technical High School held tonight’s meeting.

Other panel meetings this year have included loud protests by busloads of parents who target Klein personally for everything from closing schools to overseeing falling test scores. Tonight’s tone harkened more to the first-ever meeting of the panel, which the New York Times described this way in a headline the next day:

When the City Council scrutinizes the Department of Education’s planned budget cuts tomorrow (at a hearing scheduled for 1 p.m.) members might want to have aspirin on hand.

That’s because, like the budget itself, the department’s Power Point presentation of the cuts it has identified would give even the most seasoned analyst a headache. The image above is just one page of the dizzying document.

The cuts are divided into five “buckets,” ranging from the central administration to District 75, the city’s district for severely disabled students. How deeply schools and students are actually going to feel the mid-year cuts isn’t at all clear, nor is it clear exactly how the proposed cuts add up to the $185 million the mayor asked the DOE to cut from its budget by Nov. 21.

Some questions, among many, that education committee members might ask: (more…)