GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The City Council’s education committee voted today to recommend closing schools on two Muslim holy days observed by as many as 10 percent of the city’s schoolchildren. But the advisory vote is unlikely to change the city schools’ calendar, unless Mayor Bloomberg has a change of heart about slimming down the school year.

Several council members said during the vote this morning that they were conflicted about recommending that schools be closed for any length of time. But only one, Oliver Koppell of the Bronx, voted against the resolution during the main round of voting. Ten council members cast yes votes at that time, and at least three others added their yes votes as the committee continued its main hearing, on high school graduation requirements.

The vote followed a hearing nine months ago on the subject, when dozens of people testified in favor of having the days off and not a single person testified against them, committee chair Robert Jackson said today. Muslim families and religious leaders have been pushing for the holidays since 2006, when students were scheduled to take state tests on the first day of Eid Ul-Adha, one of Islam’s holiest days. (more…)

An exercise activity schedule from the DOE's learning guide.

The Department of Education doesn’t want healthy children who attend the as-of-now 19 schools closed because of swine flu fears to sit idly while they stay home. To keep them occupied, the DOE has made available optional “learn at home” activity guides, and Chancellor Joel Klein is urging everyone to participate.

The guides were compiled in short order by the DOE’s teaching and learning department and can be picked up in four locations or downloaded from the department’s Web site. Updated guides and a packet of work for high school students will be posted as soon as tonight, according to a DOE spokeswoman.

Chancellor Klein told reporters yesterday that he would like students who are able to complete the voluntary schoolwork. “I hope this is not viewed as a holiday,” he said.

The guides include daily schedules that break down four hours of learning into small blocks: 45 minutes each for English and math and half an hour each for vocabulary and science. Another hour and a half is divided evenly among fitness and health, arts and sampling educational television shows (one suggestion is Animal Planet’s “Meerkat Manor”) and Web sites. (more…)

Teachers across the city are leaving their classrooms this week to grade the state reading tests required by the No Child Left Behind law. This is a change from last year, when they were paid extra to grade the tests after school and on weekends. But the new arrangement also carries costs. Meredith Kolodner recently pointed out in the Daily News that schools lose not only the teachers’ time but also the money it costs to pay a substitute.

This could be a matter of “too bad, but move on.” In terrible budget times, the system has no choice but to use school time to grade the exams. Except for one thing: It might be that the time allotted to grade the tests is too long.

Eva Moskowitz, the Harlem charter school operator and former City Council member, says that when her teachers graded 60 children’s practice third-grade English Language Arts tests earlier this year, under exactly the prescribed conditions, the whole procedure took just 43 minutes. Yet grading of the ELA tests in district schools began last week and will go on through the middle of February. Charter schools, whose grading is coordinated by the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, are being asked to send teachers for three-day stints.

“This is a very lickety-split operation,” Moskowitz said. “How you would drag it out over three days, I don’t know.” She said that the actual tasks required are simple. “This is like two sentences and an editing passage. And the rubric is very strict,” she said. “I don’t know why we’re asking teachers to do this, frankly. To me, high school students would suffice. Maybe even good middle school students would suffice.”

Andrew Jacob, a spokesman for the city school system, said there is a simple reason for the time demands: “We have a lot of tests to grade and we have a lot of measures in place to ensure that the tests are being graded accurately.” James Merriman, executive director of the charter center, said the grading process follows strict guidelines meant to ensure credible results.

Speaking of the average length of the school day, I took this picture at 3 o’clock on the dot, on 19th Street in Brooklyn.

 

Three boys leaving school in Greenwood Heights, Brooklyn, at 3pm on the dot.

Henry Levin

Today’s “Those Who Dared” excerpt is from the essay by Henry Levin, a Columbia University economist whose work focuses on the economics of education.

Earlier in his career, Levin supervised the Accelerated Schools Project, an effort to push a handful of low-performing California elementary schools to offer enhanced instruction to all students. Because of that experience, Levin argues that teachers should spend more time preparing instruction, not delivering it. This opinion sets him apart from some contemporary policy wonks who are pushing schools to adopt a longer school day and school year. He writes:

There is never enough time for planning, problem-solving, group learning, democratic participation in decisions, gathering information, celebrating, and all of the other activities that need to be incorporated into an Accelerated School. So called in-service days are few, and allocations for preparation time are typically encumbered by other demands that cannot easily be shed. Democratic decision-making for the school, problem-solving with inquiry methods, and the formulation and implementation of powerful learning units take considerable time, but all expand equity and effectiveness of instruction considerably. ASP always found that even creative ways of obtaining time outside of instruction were challenging and required compromises of personal time and school activities. Somehow we must find ways of building more time into the school day for planning and collaboration (as the Japanese do), even if there are fewer minutes of instruction.