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New York City is releasing its annual report cards for every public elementary and middle school tomorrow, and though this event is usually the focus of the week’s news cycle, city officials are trying to keep the release quiet.

Last year, when 97 percent of elementary and middle schools received an A or B on their progress reports, Department of Education officials held a press conference with Chancellor Joel Klein to announce the results. The same was done in 2008. This year, just as the city has changed its formula for assigning the grades and tougher state tests mean more schools will receive a D or F grade than last year or the year before, the DOE is downplaying the release.

There will be no press conference tomorrow. The chancellor, who in years past has taken questions from reporters in public, will spend the day in Washington D.C, according to a DOE spokesman. Instead, reporters have to request a phone interview with DOE Deputy Chancellor for Accountability Shael Suransky and Klein may be made available for some reporters’ calls late tomorrow afternoon.

“The reasoning is that apart from the data itself, the grades schools receive, and which ones receive the grades, there’s no news here,” said DOE spokesman Matt Mittenthal. (more…)

David Cantor, head of the Department of Education's press juggernaut, is leaving. (Courtesy of Cantor.)

After five years of taking our phone calls and returning most of them, Department of Education Press Secretary David Cantor is moving on.

He had the job longer than any of his predecessors, overseeing both periods of high-frequency press outreach and long droughts of stay-the-course defense.

His departure will make it even harder for reporters to extract information out of an opaque organization, especially considering he’s leaving behind an office full of recent hires. It will also finally allow him to escape from complaints — sure to return given the dismal budget climate — that the school system spends too much money staffing its press office.

Cantor is going over to Widmeyer Communications, where he’ll remain on the education beat as the senior vice president in charge of PreK-12 education, arts, and philanthropy. Widmeyer was founded by Scott Widmeyer, an operator in the education world who cut his teeth working for teachers union president Al Shanker. But it does work for the non-union side of things, too, including the Gates Foundation and Pearson.

Cantor sent over this statement: (more…)