A new year's poll: What was the most important 2007 NYC education story?

Posted by Philissa at 5:52 PM

Earlier this month 45 of you answered a poll about what you consider the best source of information about New York City's public schools. As I hoped and expected, most of you (68 percent) said Insideschools is your favorite source — but I was a little surprised that the DOE came in second, with 13 percent of responses, before other parents, your school, and "other."

Here's a new poll for the new year. What was the most important 2007 NYC education story? Your choices:

• The DOE's reorganization
  
• The launch of the Insideschools blog
  
• The rollout of Roland Fryer's incentive programs
• The showdown between the City Council and Mayor Bloomberg over the cell phone ban
  
• The state delivers Campaign for Fiscal Equity money 13 years after the initial suit
  
• The progress reports
  

Or did I miss something big? It's totally possible. Leave your nominations for additional stories in the comments. Let's hope the pace of change is happier and healthier in 2008. Happy New Year!

Poll: Who has the best information about schools?

Posted by Philissa at 2:42 PM

Buried in a Downtown Express article about the changes to the middle school admission timeline -- Did you hear? The calendar will be standardized across districts and applications will be due in February -- was this gem about Insideschools:

The problems with notification — [parent Linda] Levy found out about the timeline change not from the school system but from the Web site insideschools.org — are quintessential Department of Education issues, she said.

So that makes me curious. I'd like to think Insideschools always has the most timely and accurate information about schools. But schools, other parents, and yes, even the DOE often beat us to the punch. Which source do you think is the best? Answer in our poll (at the top right side of the blog). Explain your answer in the comments.

New Quinnipiac poll says voters are happy with school grades

Posted by Philissa at 12:35 PM

A new poll out of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute shows that the majority of New York City voters — 61 percent — thought the school grades released earlier this month were fair. An even higher percentage of the public school parents polled — 75 percent — said their own school's grade was fair. Just over a quarter of those polled said they are satisfied with the city's schools — the highest approval rate in years of polls. And voters are pretty split on whether Chancellor Klein is doing a good job — but voters in the Bronx are happiest with his tenure.

These poll results suggest that Insideschools readers are more critical than the typical New Yorker — in our recent poll, almost 60 percent of readers gave the grades either a "D" or an "F."

What does this mean? In contrast with national trends that show people approving of their own schools even while being dissatisfied with schools in general, a whole lot of New Yorkers must think their school truly deserves a middling grade. And if the chancellor and mayor wants to bolster their approval ratings, they ought to rethink the plan to yank principals of failing schools — only 29 percent of voters think that's an appropriate consequence.

Our poll: No one thinks reorganization going "very" smoothly

Posted by Philissa at 3:44 PM

You might not have noticed, but for the last couple of weeks we've had a small poll in the sidebar of the blog. Only nine of you answered this first poll, which asked, "Do you think the reorganization is going smoothly?" Seven of you answered that it's going "somewhat" smoothly, and two of you thought it's not going smoothly at all. No one answered that the reorganization is going "very" smoothly -- which was no surprise to us at Insideschools; we're spending this week trying to figure out just how to reach our contacts at the DOE.

Be on the lookout for a new poll soon!