New site for our blog

Posted by helen at 1:46 PM

Faithful readers (and intrepid beta-testers) know that Insideschools' long-anticipated website redesign will launch later this week. We're aiming to get everything up and running ahead of the new school year -- eight days and counting!

As a preview, the blog is migrating to the new site today, Monday, August 25th. Here's a quick link to our new e-home, please pay us a visit. And you can always access the blog from the Insideschools home page.

As ever, we welcome your comments and appreciate your support. Thanks and see you on the new site.

Reminder: To comment on posts, please click over to the new site. Comments here are closed but the new blog's comment queues are wide open.

Pre-K spots STILL open, per DOE

Posted by helen at 1:16 PM

The DOE has updated its pre-K registers and says there are half- and full-day spots open at some city schools. Have a look at their updated directory to see what's available; registration begins next Thursday, the 28th and wraps up on the first day of school.

Some parents have written in to say their kids didn't get placements or were offered pre-K seats far from their homes. The frustrations are real (and the time before school is short). Here's hoping that the Pre-K Borough Enrollment staff help resolve open questions — and that the DOE responds to the outspoken demand for seats in good schools by expanding pre-K opportunities.

Fewer dangerous city schools

Posted by helen at 8:54 AM

The good news, from the DOE and the State, is that crime in the city's schools is on the wane: Of 25 city schools described as persistently dangerous by the State last year, 15 were removed from the list in light of improved safety and lower crime. The downside is that 11 city schools remain on the danger list. New York City also added more schools (six) to the state's list than any other area of the state.

In counterpoint, Comptroller William Thomson asserts that as many as one in five violent/criminal/safety incidents that occur in schools go improperly or incompletely reported. City leaders hope that a proposed amendment to the City Charter will improve school security by directing complaints of police misconduct to the Civilian Complaint Review Board (not the current norm) and requiring regular reporting on school violence to the DOE and NYPD.


In an article today, the Post documents a number of District 75 schools on the state's list -- D 75 schools enroll special need students with the most acute needs. Reports of persistent violence in D 75 schools, where staff ratios are far smaller than mainstream schools, raise difficult questions on all sides. And an AP story from am New York sets New York's improvements against a national canvas, noting without irony that the other 49 states document a total of 21 persistently dangerous schools compared to New York State's 19 (although reporting criteria vary from state to state).


Notably, despite pop-media visions of metal-detectors and box-cutter-wielding teens, "persistently dangerous" schools include elementary and middle schools, too. Under the provisions of NCLB, parents can request safety transfers for students enrolled at "dangerous" schools. But time is short before the start of school; those interested in seeking transfers should contact their school this week to explore the process.

Pre-K round II news

Posted by helen at 8:46 AM

Families who applied for pre-K seats in the second application round should have news by the end of this week; letters went out by mail yesterday afternoon, according to an email from the DOE's Andy Jacob.

Money for high marks

Posted by helen at 7:58 AM

In a signature transposition of business practice into the education environment, the Klein administration at the DOE has installed a range of mechanisms to pay people -- teachers, principals, and students, at selected schools -- for performance. Today's Times story challenges the merits of a $2 million REACH incentive program (for REwarding ACHievement). Guess what? The results are a mixed bag.

Turns out more high-school students took Advanced Placement exams, which can earn college credit for high-scoring students. Fewer students passed overall, but a fraction more scored at the highest level, 5.

Promoters beg more time to show stronger results; critics say there are better ways to spend that kind of (private) money, despite similar programs' rising popularity in schools nationwide. And you can bet that man-about-town Joel Klein will face sharp questions on the program in his three public appearances today, at a REACH briefing, an NAACP event in Brooklyn and a Teach for America welcome-teachers evening program. But a quote at the end of the story caught our eye: Kati Haycock, director of the DC-based Education Trust, says that "rich kids get paid for high grades all the time and for high test scores by their parents."

Do you pay your kids for good grades? Do you reward effort (trying hard) or outcomes (the grade itself)? And what's the line between motivation and bribe -- between incentive and payoff? We don't think parents have deep pockets for report-card shakedowns, but we could be wrong...

Charter chatter, Q & As

Posted by helen at 11:16 AM

Citing competition as the key to success, Mayor Bloomberg says that pressure from charter schools force traditional public schools to improve. But advocates like Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters beg to differ: the small classes that are the charter norm are all too elusive in mainstream public education, despite long-fought battles. And one has to ask a question that's tough to ask aloud: Are middle-class parents fighting as hard for access to charters as families in neighborhoods long poorly served by city schools?

Maybe that's one of the questions that will be answered on the New York Times Charter School Q&A thread. And for families of high-school students and rising eighth-graders, who will be facing the high-school selection process this year, the DOE is hosting a Q&A with Evaristo Jimenez, head of high school enrollment.

As one commenter implored yesterday, speak up! If parents don't ask the hard questions to advance their child's education, who will?

News, local and other

Posted by helen at 9:26 AM

It's safe bet that most readers saw yesterday's New York Times magazine cover story, detailing the vast educational experiment underway in New Orleans. In a similar vein, today at noon, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will announce the opening of 18 new charter schools, which are subject to stringent oversight (read, lots of student testing to measure achievement) but not obliged to meet city-mandated curriculum guidelines -- or or bound by union rules, as most charter school faculties aren't UFT members.

Some schools, like the KIPP charters and Excellence Charter School of Bedford Stuyvesant, have great reputations, while others flounder and struggle. We'd love to hear from readers whose kids attend charter schools; are you happy with what and how your kids are learning? What's happening in your child's classroom?

And in the spirit of behind-the-headlines illumination, see this tiny AP item. Teachers in a Texas district get the official ok to pack heat in the classroom -- ostensibly, to discourage school violence. Anyone else get awfully nervous at this kind of news?

Pre-K round II: News?

Posted by helen at 11:44 AM

A number of parents have been wondering whether others in the city have heard any placement news on their child's round II pre-K application.

DOE said they'd let folks know by now (mid-August), but many don't have news yet. To connect with other pre-K parents, visit our forums, click on the pre-K thread, and join the conversation. And let us know, please, where the news has arrived -- and where it hasn't.

Update: We heard from DOE; they will snail-mail letters to families next week.

G+T programs: What's happening in your neighborhood?

Posted by helen at 11:19 AM

We've heard reports from parents across the city that some g+t programs in local schools have been shuttered for the coming school year -- for a range of reasons, including low enrollment and g+t funding cutbacks by DOE planners. We've asked the DOE repeatedly for a current list of g+t district programs (they say it's coming), but hear conflicting reports from parents, principals and administrators in the field. That's why we're asking readers to let us know of changes in their districts.

In District 6 in Washington Heights, for example, g+t programs that recently enrolled up to 80 kindergarten students have been pared back to one class (a second class was cancelled when too few families enrolled their children). We've heard of changes, too, in District 18 in Brooklyn and elsewhere.

Our readers are our eyes and ears on the street; please let us know what's happening in your neighborhood.

G+T questions and answers

Posted by helen at 8:55 AM

In the end of June, we started gathering questions for the DOE on a wide range of subjects. It took a month to set up the interview, but on July 31st, we spoke with DOE administrators about gifted and talented admissions, among other issues. A short blog post gave highlights (and generated dozens of reader comments); for more, see the article in the current alert.

We still have open questions, of course, and have had assurances they will be answered. In particular, we're waiting to hear about the sibling/non-sibling mix of each citywide g+t Kindergarten class (both in terms of seat count and test scores).

In terms of overall takeaway, the DOE heard the anger and confusion of parents stymied by gifted and talented admissions this year: They felt the heat, and they want very much to avoid similar experiences in coming years. All agree that this year's process had flaws.

We have absolute assurances from Elizabeth Sciabarra and Anna Commitante that communication ahead of, during, and after admissions and placement decision-making will be clearer, more explicit and more frequent this year. But how these good intentions will inform actual practice can only be known as the year unfolds.

We look forward to brokering an ongoing conversation between parents and the DOE, and welcome reader responses, questions, observations and comments.

Spinning the numbers

Posted by helen at 8:16 AM

Interesting to see how the grad-rate report is presented by local media. Facts are facts, but how they're spun reflects how they're seen.

For starters, the Post notes the upward trend -- but sets the NYC data against even greater apparent progress in long-troubled cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. The Sun describes "an uptick" in state and city scores (and a brief moment of mayoral pique), while the Daily News, incredibly, says "the gap between black and white students closed" -- somehow overlooking the 21 percentage points that separate both groups' graduation rates. The Times' headlines the on-time graduation of "most" city students, for the biggest "hunh?" moment of the morning's news. No argument, 52% is more -- but most? Could a student who scored a 52 on a 100-point exam celebrate getting "most" of the questions right? (Would you accept that, as a parent? The DOE doesn't think twice about calling a 52 a failure on a Regents exam.)

The mind reels, as do the perceptions of readers, decision-makers, and parents citywide.

Grad rates at last: Inching up, with caveats

Posted by helen at 4:40 PM

The State and the City finally released the 2007 high school graduation rate today, and the news is both heartening and discouraging, on more than a few counts.

First, the good news: The overall graduation rate continues to nudge upward from the swamp where it had long languished. For the city as a whole, 52.2% of students who started high school in 2003 (the 2003 cohort) graduated in four years. Another 3.6% graduated in August, via credit recovery and other recuperative programs (mention of which flummoxed the Mayor briefly at a press conference today). If this seems lower than the 60% that was so widely celebrated last year, it is -- in years past, the city included GED-earners in the grad rate, unlike the State's more stringent criteria, which the city now shares.

More Asian and white students continue to earn diplomas than their African-American and Hispanic classmates (bad news) but the gap between the races is narrowing -- slightly (good news, but not that good): Nearly 71% and nearly 69% of Asian and white students graduate in four years; only 43% of Hispanic kids earn their diploma in the same time, as do just over 47% of African-American students. So while it's true that grad rates are rising for African-American and Hispanic kids, it will be a long, long time before the academic playing field is even approximately equal. And demographics notwithstanding, boys continue to lag behind girls in academic achievement. But back on the good-news side, New York leads the state's biggest cities in academic gains. On the bad-news side, the cities still lag well behind the state's overall grad rate of 79.2%.

Less enthusiastic results were posted for English Language Learners, who Chancellor Klein identifies as "our greatest challenge." ELL grad rates dropped in recent years and now have risen three points, to 23.5% for four-year grads and 32.4% for kids who stay in high school for five years (no typo on those stats). Students with disabilities showed slight change in their graduation rate (from 19.4% in 2006 to 19.1% in 2007. Good news, no drop; bad news, scant improvement.

The general tenor of the announcement this afternoon was celebratory but clear-eyed; the Mayor, sporting a spectacular tan, praised all involved, from Klein (also summer-bronzed) and Weingarten down into the academic trenches -- teachers, principals, APs, parents, and of course the students, especially the kids who stick with high school into a fifth or sixth year. "That they didn't do it in four years is immaterial," said the Mayor, who added that staying longer in high school is "demonstrative of someone who wants to take charge of their life," and graciously crediting Jennifer Medina's Times story today as proof.

Still, Bloomberg acknowledged, "despite this heartwarming progress," there's "enormous room for improvement." Notably, 38% of students don't graduate in four years, and nearly 14% drop out. "It's going to be very hard to get them back," he said. (About 10% stay enrolled in high school beyond four years.) The dropout rate contracted slightly since last year, from 15% to 14.7%; we're waiting for follow-up from the DOE on students who were discharged from school -- and don't show up in DOE records as students or dropouts.

Students now in high school can earn one of three diplomas -- local, Regents, or Advanced Regents. About two-thirds of NYC grads earn a Regents diploma, which is good news -- but not so good for the third who get less-rigorous Local credentials, and moot entirely for the kids starting high school next month, who are not eligible to earn the local diploma at all. We've asked the DOE for diploma and grad-rate details on the new small high schools and Career and Technical Education schools, and for more specific demographic and gender information -- and we'll report back whenever we hear more.

Let us know if you have questions; the State published a thick deck of data slides, and we'll post links to specifics if there's interest.


Update: A correction for clarity: The overall state graduation rate cited above, of 79.2%, reflects the grad rate for schools outside the state's five biggest cities, and not the state as a whole. Regrets for any confusion.

Special education coalition to advocate for transparency, reform

Posted by helen at 9:35 AM

Among the 1.1 million schoolchildren in NYC public schools, 181,000 students with special needs often face unique, daunting, and systemic challenges, and parents of special-needs kids often feel excluded from the mainstream education debate.  

To that end, a new coalition (spearheaded by Advocates for Children) has been formed to advocate for special-needs families, share special-ed resources, and raise a collective voice for reform and greater equity in the special-needs community.  Visit the ARISE website for more information.  

State Senate invites parent voices

Posted by helen at 9:28 AM

On Tuesday August 12 from 5pm to 8pm, State Senator Martin Connor and members of the State Democratic School Governance Task Force will convene at Brooklyn's Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street, to hear parents speak about mayoral control and the state of the city schools.  

The Task Force wants to hear about crowded or well-run schools; if parent voices are heard by school leaders; and what's working -- and what's not, from parents' point of view.  

In terms of speaking truth to power, this is a pretty direct channel to sometimes-remote lawmakers.  And since mayoral control lives or dies in Albany, it's likely a meeting worth attending.  We'll be there, in any event, and report back on what unfolds. 

New tower, new middle school?

Posted by helen at 9:06 AM

Families in downtown Brooklyn have long lobbied DOE for new middle schools, especially as local elementaries revive (pace, PS 8's new expansion plans) and the waterfront neighborhoods host new (and massive) housing developments. Now, the Daily News reports there's more support for a new middle school in DUMBO, 45,000 square feet of spanking-new classroom space in a much-criticized project by the Walentas family Two Trees company, headed up by heir apparent, 33-year-old Jed Walentas. Even Schools Construction Authority president Sharon Greenberger has thrown her support behind the Dock St. tower middle school -- and it's safe to bet, the DOE approved her endorsement.

Walentas pere has been steadily, stealthily buying up waterfront and DUMBO parcels for the last two decades, with not a lot of love lost between him and local residents. Cynics wonder, in the quid-pro-quo world of real estate development, what the net gain is for his Dock St. tower, above and beyond the potential benefit to the community.

District 2 overcrowding: Rally this afternoon

Posted by helen at 9:19 AM

District 2, which encompasses some of Manhattan's prime development turf, has chronically overcrowded elementary schools. Middle schools, often housed on the top floors of primary schools, add to the population pressure.

In a long letter to the Community Education Council, the DOE proposed short- and long-term responses to grade-school crowding -- including moving fifth-graders at jammed schools to less-populous schools two miles uptown, strictly limiting zoning variances, shifting classes to underused space at local middle and elementary schools, as well as plans to add thousands of new school seats and (possible) zoning changes. Safe to say, the issue won't be resolved in the next month, before school begins. For schools like PS 234, which is at 150% utilization, or PS 59, at 192%, close quarters doesn't even begin to describe it.

Local parents and school advocates want the DOE to consider another short-term option not outlined in their D 2 'blueprint,' which focuses on grade school crowding. A state-owned building at 75 Morton St., in the thick of the overcrowded zone, is on the auction block. Parents, teachers, principals, and local pols want the DOE to acquire the building for a new public middle school. (It's fully ADA accessible, to boot.)

Today at 5:30pm, parents and activists will rally in front of 75 Morton. We hope the DOE's School Construction Authority and Office of Portfolio Development are paying attention.

Follow-Up on DOE: G+T

Posted by helen at 1:00 PM

Last week, Insideschools spoke with Anna Commitante (head of DOE G+T), Elizabeth Sciabarra (OSEPO head) and Marty Barr (OSEPO's elementary-schools head) about gifted and talented programs, enrollment, and admissions policies. Here are highlights from our conversation; a longer article in the next alert will answer some new questions, too.

Centralized admissions will still be the mode for grade-school gifted and talented programs in 2009-2010. The two exams currently used to evaluate youngsters, the OLSAT and the Bracken School Readiness Test, will continue in use; there is no plan whatsoever to add a human, subjective eye to assess the effects of, say, a suddenly tongue-tied, shy, or stubborn four-year-old. The OLSAT carries triple the weight of the Bracken, because the former looks at aptitude and the latter, at actual knowledge (letters, numbers, colors, etc.).

Sibling priority enrollment meant, this year, that applicants with older sibs in the program or in the school building (a subject of significant confusion at PS 9, which also houses the Anderson School) were eligible for citywide g+t classes at lower test scores than kids who don't have sibs in the first-choice school. The three citywide g+t schools, Anderson, NEST+m, and TAG, accepted siblings with scores from the 99th to the 96th percentile. Non-sib applicants were admitted at the 99th percentile at NEST and Anderson, with a few exceptions at TAG.

We asked how many of the newest crop of citywide g+t Kindergarten students were younger siblings vs. non-sibs; DOE rep Andy Jacob said he would get us the numbers, and we hope he will.

The question of opening a new citywide g+t school in an outer borough is under discussion, but has not yet been resolved. (We'll know more in a few weeks, promises Liz Sciabarra.) Ditto, for whether gen-ed Kindergarten applications will be centralized or school-based. Pre-K applications will, however, continue to be centralized again this year -- but the timeframe will be earlier, and communication, everyone promises, will be better, clearer, and more consistent.

As parents learned this year, some districts start g+t programming in Kindergarten, and others in first grade. While there's no citywide mandate to regulate when g+t 'should' start (or, for that matter, an official, citywide g+t curriculum, above and beyond grade standards), DOE planners now recognize that their guarantee to seat every qualified student was understood by many parents to mean, starting in Kindergarten, with new classes created where none existed before.

But new K classes were never part of the plan, said Marty Barr. The decision to hold over scores -- the 'exemptions' parents got letters about -- came about in the wake of parent protest. Most kids who qualify for g+t seats will receive them, but in first grade. (Qualifying students in Districts 7 and 14, however, were offered seats in alternate districts, because no g+t programs were offered within 7 and 14, forcing parents to consider commuting challenges and other daunting logistics.)

"It's a communication issue," said Sciabarra, who cited 'lessons learned' and a desire to "take the angst out" of admissions. "We have to do better at that."

We couldn't agree more.

(Readers seeking nitty-gritty answers to fine-tooth questions, watch for an expanded story in the upcoming alert -- too much here to bog down the blog.)

GOP spin on NYC schools

Posted by helen at 10:04 AM

John McCain (or his ghostwriter) spun an impressively bold segue from public-school reform to private-school vouchers in this editorial in the Daily News. Touting the Mayor and the Chancellor, along with Rev. Al Sharpton, as visionary ed reformers, McCain cites their efforts as evidence of school failure -- anyone else miss the logic here? -- and promises private- and religious-school vouchers as his vision of public school reform.

Read Sharpton's praise for McCain here, if you're curious.

Even with the spin, the editorial asks a big, legitimate question: Sharpton, Klein et al are at the forefront of the Education Equality Project, which defines education as an essential civil right for all Americans. Barack Obama, whose daughters attend private school, hasn't yet weighed in. As the AFT-endorsed candidate, we'd welcome his views.

'Beat goes on' Dept.

Posted by helen at 10:33 AM

Newsday asked today what we asked yesterday -- but they're getting about the same answers: Tom Dunn of NYSED said in an email the "target" date for report cards was late next week; in the article, bets are hedged to within the first two weeks of August.

And DOE belt-tightening doesn't seem to extend to travel, according to a July 29th report from City Comptroller (and mayoral hopeful) William S. Thompson. Oversights on travel expenses are presently nil at the DOE, the report said, leading to violations in bidding procedure, expensive out-of-town-retreats that could've been held locally (with no travel or hotel expenses), and DOE staff getaways in the Catskills where about a third of invited (and paid-for) participants didn't show.

The DOE didn't argue with the report's conclusions, and has "generally agreed" with the Comptroller's recommendations for additional oversights (more accountability!) and standard-operating-procedure bidding in the future.

New blog on the block

Posted by helen at 10:11 AM

A new schools blog has launched here in Gotham City, with Philissa Cramer, well-known to all Insideschools faithfuls, and former teacher Kelly Vaughan, at the helm. Welcome to the fray --