GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

A week after announcing that the city will recommend the closure of a controversial Manhattan charter school, city officials have begun to reach out to help parents plan where they will send their students next year.

In a letter sent yesterday, the charter school office executive director Recy Benjamin Dunn formally told parents that the city is recommending that the state shutter Ross Global Academy.

This is the first letter from city officials to Ross parents concerning the decision. City officials held a meeting with the school last week, and expect to release their final report recommending closure later this week or next, a Department of Education spokesman said.

Last year, when the city revoked the charter of East New York Preparatory School, officials set up a one-year program at the school that students could opt into rather than transferring to other district or charter schools. In this case, Ross parents have not yet missed the deadlines to apply to other schools and the city is encouraging them to submit applications before the Department of Education’s January deadline. (more…)

Soon-to-be Chancellor Cathie Black is not visiting schools today — not even privately — but she is making phone calls to elected officials.

Black put in a call to Assemblywoman Joan Millman, a former New York City teacher who urged State Education Commissioner David Steiner to deny Black the waiver she needed to become the next schools chancellor.

“Cathie introduced herself and the assemblywoman said, “It’s not personal, no offense, but as a former educator I’d like for there to have been a public search and I think the chancellor should have an education background,’” said Millman’s Chief of Staff Paul Nelson.

“It was a very brief conversation, less than five minutes,” he said.

Millman’s staff is in the process of drafting a bill that would prevent someone like Black, who has years of experience in the publishing business, but none in the education world, from becoming chancellor. It would take away the commissioner’s ability to give a candidates a waiver if they don’t have the education credentials required in state law. (more…)

A new effort to improve public elementary and secondary education in New York State is coming not from the government, but its state university.

State University of New York Chancellor Nancy Zimpher, who has been in office for less than a year, unveiled the university’s plans to create an approximation of the “community schools” that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan champions. These schools offer not only classes, but also health care, after-school programs and services for parents all in the same building. The model of connecting schools to social services may ring a bell to New York City residents familiar with the work of the Harlem Children’s Zone, Zimpher said.

But rather than uniting many services under one roof or through one over-arching organization, as the Harlem project does, SUNY plans to help disparate community and government groups coordinate their efforts and judge their outcomes. For example, programs for toddlers would work with elementary schools to make sure their programs prepares the children for school.

“This is about using the community resources that already exist, but connecting them in a way that maximizes their impact,” said Johanna Duncan-Poitier, the SUNY deputy chancellor charged with identifying where the program will launch. (more…)