GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

After months of relative quiet, students and staff of Newtown High School are joining the chorus of opposition to the city’s “turnaround” plans — with a heartfelt video produced by four engineering students. (more…)

Live from Albany, it’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo and representatives of New York State United Teachers, as they announce a deal over new teacher evaluations.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew will also be at the event, signaling that the city and UFT have also moved forward in their talks, which broke down late last year over the issue of appeals for teachers with low ratings.

The Daily News is reporting that the city and union have settled on an appeals system that will be modeled after New Haven’s — a city whose union New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof touted today in a column.

But a spokesman for the union just cautioned me in an email: “State deal done; UFT more complicated.” More soon.

If the UFT’s television ads are really as effective as Mayor Bloomberg says, the status of teachers is set to rise with the newest one.

An ad that aired late last month took aim at the mayor’s education record, and last week, Bloomberg blamed the attack for his low public approval on education.

The ad premiering today takes a softer approach by focusing on the hard work of teachers and not even mentioning Bloomberg’s name. Titled “Better Future,” the ad showcases four teachers working with students and meeting with parents.

“My students inspire me, and they should inspire us all,” says Christine Wong, a special education teacher who works in Manhattan. (more…)

The United Federation of Teachers is turning up the heat on Mayor Bloomberg with a new television ad marking mayoral control’s double-digit birthday.

In a separate ad appearing in print today, the union is also continuing its appeal to parents in the ongoing fight over teacher evaluations.

(more…)

A group of students from Isaac Newton Middle School screened their spots last night at the Midtown headquarters of advertising giant McCann Erickson (the same company that bought Sterling Cooper two seasons ago on the TV show “Mad Men”).

“Bullying is a topic that is all around the world, so we’re trying to send a message about it,” said Brandon Simmons, a seventh grader. Then he switched to pitch mode: “Our intended audience is students.”

Simmons and his classmates, sixth-graders Genessy Vasquez and Karina Pena, made the commercial in an after-school program, called “Ad Lab,” created by the nonprofit Citizen Schools. (more…)

Just days after announcing his impending departure from the State Education Department, Commissioner David Steiner decried “a genuine crisis” in schooling and lamented what he said is a loss of vision in education from a time when “every schoolchild, in every public school, was savored by the adults of the state.”

Steiner’s cutting remarks, made at a state teachers union event last weekend, were first reported in the New York Post today, and they can be seen in full in the video above.

Steiner himself uniquely possesses that kind of vision, writes Matthew Levey in the Community section today. Levey, the parent of three elementary school-aged children and the former president of District 2′s Community Education Council, argues that Steiner has been a lone voice advocating for classical education and reasoned dialogue at a time when test-based accountability is in vogue and debate over reforms often turns acrimonious.

Writes Levey:

Steiner struck me as a man with a long-term vision of what it means to be educated, something glaringly absent from the reform debate. At a sparsely attended talk on the Upper East Side last October, Steiner asked how we expect to make the long journey to a “better educated” student population without a detailed map for the trip. Last weekend, speaking at a state teachers union event, Steiner reflected on his tenure, pointing out that if we want to develop such a vision “we do not start by yelling at each other.”

Students from East Harlem’s Isaac Newton Middle School for Math and Science were briefly famous yesterday after a video about them landed on YouTube’s home page and was watched nearly 150,000 times.

The video touted a project the students did as part of the extended-day program run by the nonprofit Citizen Schools. The project had them film, produce, and star in their own public service announcements. Watch the winning video, which promotes the program, here.

And here’s one of the videos the students made to fight obesity:

Yesterday I highlighted a new book by some of Mayor Bloomberg’s most vocal education critics. Now, here’s a video put together by some of his biggest supporters, the folks at the pro-mayoral control lobbying group Learn NY.

On Sunday and Monday, Learn NY traveled from borough to borough to promote the governance structure, holding events featuring the group’s backers among religious and community leaders. The tour culminated in a rally at the Harlem Children’s Zone on Monday afternoon, which Learn NY said attracted more than 1,000 parents. The video above was shown at the Monday rally, which is why Harlem Children’s Zone founder and CEO Geoffrey Canada is featured so prominently. The video is the first produced by Learn NY and is meant to draw attention to President Obama’s support for mayoral control.

In recent weeks, Learn NY has focused on the bus tour and doesn’t have any other large-scale events planned before the June 30 end of the legislative session, spokeswoman Julie Wood said today.