GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

To comply with federal rules meant to turn struggling schools around, the city is playing a game of musical chairs — or, rather, musical principals.

Under the rules, the 11 struggling schools the city wants to “transform” can’t get federal dollars unless the city replaces their current principals with a new leader. But in one case, school officials have removed the principal from one struggling school — and made her the new leader at another.

Geraldine Maione will move from being principal at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, one of the 11 transformation schools, to being principal at William Grady, another of the 11.

The shuffling of principals highlights the compromise approach that the city is taking with the 11 schools it selected for “transformation.” The transformation model is the least severe of the four federal school turnaround strategies because it does not require officials to remove any teachers. It does, however, require that the principal be replaced.

But officials have wanted to keep some of the 11 principals, citing improvements their schools have made on their watch. (more…)

More than thirty schools waiting to hear how they’ll have to change under a federal program targeting low-performing schools will have to wait longer.

The federal government is giving New York State $308 million to help fix its lowest-performing 5 percent of schools, 34 of which are in New York City. To receive the funds, school districts must explain to the state which of four pre-approved models of school improvement they plan to use. The city’s plans were originally due today, but they’ve been delayed as city and teachers union officials haggle.

“While we work to finalize labor issues, we’ve been granted a one week extension on our application,” Department of Education spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld said. “Given the wide variety of schools involved, we want to make sure we have as many options as possible to fix these struggling schools.” (more…)

In an attempt to improve some of the worst schools in the country, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is offering states four methods of turning around their lowest performers. But New York City officials say the union contract here rules out one of the three —  the so-called “transformation” model — even though it’s the only one that wouldn’t cause teachers to lose their jobs.

The other three methods either turn schools into charter schools, close them down, or force their principals and at least half of the staff to be fired. “Transformation” calls for the principal’s removal, but keeps the school’s staff in place.

Yet crucially, it also requires that schools use students’ test scores as a significant factor in evaluating teachers, that merit pay be put in place, and that teachers whose students don’t show enough improvement be fired. Since New York state law bars principals from using student data in teachers’ tenure decisions and the teachers contract only allows merit pay for entire schools that perform well, not individual teachers, city officials claim they cannot use it.

That’s despite the fact that the city actually wants to use the transformation model at some of the 34 schools on the state’s turnaround list, a Department of Education official said. He mentioned (but did not name) a small group of schools that are improving and have above-average graduation rates despite their overall-poor performance. (more…)