GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Courtesy of the Bronx borough president's office

No one can accuse Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr. of being unprepared for the possibility that mayoral control will expire tonight. Diaz just named his potential appointee to the theoretical Board of Education.

That person is Dr. Dolores Fernandez, a professor of urban education at CUNY’s Graduate Center who retired as president of Hostos Community College in 2008.

Fernandez’s appointment will become effective at midnight tonight if the 2002 mayoral control law expires and the Senate does not pass a law to replace it.

Diaz said in a statement today that he is “a supporter of some form of mayoral control.” Asked if Diaz would recommend that his appointee to the board vote to retain Joel Klein as chancellor, John DeSio, a spokesman for the borough president, would not comment yesterday. “He has mixed opinions on the chancellor,” DeSio said.

Fernandez could not immediately be reached for comment. In a release put out by Diaz’s office, she said:

“For me, it is an honor to be thought of by Borough President Diaz to represent The Bronx on the Board of Education. I look forward to serving our borough, and its children, in an admirable and professional way.”

Between 1988 and 1990, Fernandez was deputy chancellor for instruction and development for the Board of Education. She served under chancellor Richard Green, the system’s first black chancellor, who died suddenly a year into his tenure of an asthma attack, leaving the school system in disarray. Fernandez has a Master’s in Education and a professional diploma in Educational Administration.

The full press release follows. (more…)

Teachers union president Randi Weingarten today signed her name to a work contract free of the word “tenure” — and then heralded the contract as a model for American schools.

The contract is for a new charter high school in the Bronx run by Green Dot Public Schools, a California-based organization that manages charter schools. In a twist from most other charter school operators, Green Dot encourages its teachers to be represented by unions, and the United Federation of Teachers is representing teachers at the new Bronx school.

The agreement itself — all 29 pages plus appendices of which you can read here — is also a departure from typical practice. Charter school leaders often shun teachers unions’ involvement as hurting their schools’ ability to focus on students, while labor leaders fight against charter schools, accusing them of union-busting.

Weingarten and Steve Barr, the leader of Green Dot, said they came together because they both believe that students can only learn more if teachers are treated as professionals. They said that unions help make that possible. “We need to grow up politically,” Barr said, referring to charter school leaders. “If we’re going to actually … respect the idea that this is the civil rights issue of our time, we’ve got to get rid of this adult dysfunction.”

Weingarten said that while she supports the concept of tenure, it should never be mistaken for “lifetime job security.” She said the contract should become a “national model.” “I love signing this contract!” she said while penning her name to the document. (more…)

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s mayoral control bill passed the Assembly 121-18 just now, our Anna Phillips reports to us from Albany. The bill would continue the mayor’s control of the schools until 2015, with some added checks, including strengthened audit powers over Department of Education data.

All eyes now move to the state Senate, where the new Democratic leader, John Sampson, is vowing to fight for more checks to the mayor’s power.

UPDATE: Anna sends in the no votes. They are Alan Maisel, Hakeem Jeffries, Carl Heastie, Jeffrey Dinowitz, Joseph Abbate, William Colton, James Brennan, Mark Weprin, Jose Rivera, Naomi Rivera, Jeffrion Aubry, Daniel O’Donnell, Annette Robinson, Deborah Glick, Vanessa Gibson, Nick Perry, Marcos Crespo, Nelson Castro. Inez Barron did not vote, and Rory Lancman voted yes.

Lancman had been leading the charge to make the Department of Education both a state and city agency, a revision that is not included in Silver’s bill.

We just heard from a source with connections in Albany: The Assembly’s education committee has passed Speaker Sheldon Silver’s mayoral control bill. Five of the committee’s 29 members voted against the bill, which some critics have said includes too few checks on the mayor’s authority, our source reports.

The committee’s approval means that the bill can now be voted on by the Assembly as a whole. After Silver formally proposed the bill on Sunday night, lawmakers told the New York Times that they thought the Assembly would pass the bill by Wednesday. So far, they appear to be on pace to meet that deadline.

More on this story as it develops.

UPDATE: According to committee chair Catherine Nolan’s office, the five committee members voting against the bill were James Brennan, Alan Maisel, and Joan Millman of Brooklyn; Daniel O’Donnell of Manhattan; and Mark Weprin of Queens. The bill passed the education committee last night and is headed to the Ways and Means Committee today, with debate on the Assembly floor likely tomorrow, Nolan’s office confirmed.

UPDATE 2: A reader points out that this means only half, or five of 10, of the Assembly education committee members from New York City voted for the bill. They are committee chairwoman Catherine Nolan of Queens, Carmen Arroyo and Michael Benedetto of the Bronx, and Karim Camara and Barbara Clark of Brooklyn. (Clark is one of Mayor Bloomberg’s strongest mayoral control allies in the Assembly).

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post suggested that the mayoral control bill would become law upon its passage by the full Assembly. In fact, a bill becomes law only after the State Senate passes a similar bill and the discrepancies between the two bills are negotiated away in a conference committee consisting of members of both legislative bodies. The governor then has to sign the reconciled bill to make it law. The State Senate has not tackled legislative business in the nine days since its dramatic leadership coup.

After infuriating activists pushing for checks to the mayor’s control of the public schools, teachers union president Randi Weingarten today stood next to them at a press conference in Albany, joining a declaration that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s proposed bill does not give enough voice to parents.

Teachers and principals have unions, but parents do not, Weingarten said, according to someone who attended the press conference. That’s why she said she is calling on lawmakers to write additional voice for parents into a revised mayoral control law.

In making the statement, Weingarten stood beside representatives of the Campaign for Better Schools and the Parent Commission on School Governance, two groups that have called for stronger checks to the mayor’s power than the union ultimately demanded. Members of the Parent Commission on School Governance have criticized Weingarten for giving in to the wishes of Mayor Bloomberg, who has endorsed Silver’s bill.

It was not clear exactly how much of those groups’ positions Weingarten endorsed. At least five Democratic Assembly members also joined the press conference.

UPDATE: A spokesman for Weingarten, Ron Davis, just called to say she is concerned about this story. The spokesman said that Weingarten had “nothing but praise” for Silver’s bill at the press conference, though she did say that she thinks it should be revised to “ensure a greater parental role.” (more…)

The Citizens Union has backed away from a push to give fixed terms to members of the citywide school board, following lobbying from Mayor Bloomberg and President Obama’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, according to sources familiar with the watchdog group’s stance.

Bloomberg has vigorously opposed fixed terms. He says he needs to be able to dismiss school board members at his pleasure in order to have real control over the public schools.

Members of the Citizens Union had previously voted to endorse fixed terms. But the position the Citizens Union, a nonprofit good-government group, will recommend tomorrow backs away from the fixed-terms power check. As a compromise, it would force the mayor to give 90 days’ notice before dismissing a board member, sources said.

Bloomberg reached out to the group after it briefed City Hall on the first proposal last week, urging board members to reconsider their stance. The group subsequently re-started its process of debating and voting on a position, sources said.

Duncan also weighed in during that period, writing a personal letter urging the group to preserve the mayor’s power over the schools, sources said. Duncan has previously said he supports mayoral control as a way to improve urban schools. (more…)

The head of the Assembly’s education committee, Catherine Nolan of Queens, is expected to release a revised proposal for the mayoral control law this evening, in the Assembly Democrats’ second closed-door conference  on the law. Opponents of mayoral control, anticipating that the proposal will not include as many checks to the mayor’s power as they had hoped, are scrambling to encourage supporters to call their elected officials and demand more changes.

The goal is to persuade Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver not to finalize a plan the opponents think is too weak, said April Humphrey, an organizer with the Campaign for Better Schools, which is pushing for checks to the mayor’s power over the schools. A main concern is that the proposal will not create fixed terms for members of the citywide school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy.

Humphrey suggested that her group has abandoned efforts to revise the board to give the mayor a minority of appointments. “I don’t know if there’s a lot that we can do on that,” she said.

Humphrey said opponents of mayoral control feel a particular sense of urgency because they don’t expect the Senate, which has flipped to Republican control, to produce a palatable proposal. “Who knows what’s going to happen with the Senate, but if the Senate ends up in Republican hands, they’re not going to do any better for us than the Assembly will,” Humphrey said.

“Emergency!! Call you [sic] assembly member NOW,” was the subject line of an e-mail blast the Campaign sent out this afternoon. (more…)

Just days after a massive protest against a proposed charter school siting at a Brooklyn middle school, the charter school under contention withdrew its request for public space today.

The Hebrew Language Academy Charter School, which the Department of Education had proposed siting inside a middle school in Marine Park, Brooklyn, told school officials today that it no longer wants to be housed in a public school building, DOE spokeswoman Melody Meyer told me. That means that the location under contention, IS 278, is off the table, and the charter school will not be considered for space in any other DOE building, Meyer said.

The news is certain to be well received at IS 278, where a meeting on Tuesday about the proposed charter school drew hundreds of protesters, including Comptroller William Thompson, City Council member Lew Fidler, and Congressman Anthony Weiner. (more…)

An effort to move state tests later in the year is gaining momentum, following a state Education Department survey that shows wide support among teachers for the change. More than 80 percent of nearly 23,000 parents, teachers, and school administrators the department surveyed this spring said they favor at least some rescheduling of the tests, and the state Board of Regents could implement a change as soon as the 2010-2011 school year, a member said.

Right now, students take English tests in January and math tests in March, but critics have said the timing doesn’t give teachers enough time to bring students up to grade level. The early testing also makes it difficult to use test scores to evaluate teachers’ effectiveness.

The Board of Regents, the state board that sets education policy, requested the survey. Betty Rosa, a Regents member from the Bronx, said that the Regents are likely to propose a change in the timing of tests for the 2010-2011 school year. “All the members have been very, very united on this front,” Rosa said.

Merryl Tisch, the new Regents chancellor, did not return several requests for comment. (more…)

Marcia Lyles, the city’s top-ranking educator, has been offered the superintendency of a 17,000-student Delaware school district, according to a person who just left the meeting of the Christina Public Schools school board.

The six-member board voted unanimously to offer Lyles the position at about 9 p.m., Harrie Ellen Minnehan, a teacher who was at the meeting, just told me. Lyles, since 2007 the city’s deputy chancellor for teaching and learning, was not present for the vote, Minnehan said.

Minnehan described the school board meeting as unusually subdued, considering the magnitude of the announcement. “Usually when they announce something like that people are very excited,” she said. “Tonight, everyone just sat there stunned. You could literally hear a pin drop.” She said some of the 50 people in the audience got up and walked out before the vote in protest. “I could not sit in there when they voted,” Minnehan told me a principal friend said to her.

A reason for the unenthusiastic response is that the local teachers and principals unions had endorsed Lyles’ chief opponent, Freeman Williams, a longtime district educator. (more…)