Kids in the United States are being tutored by college graduates in India — and neither of them seems to find the situation weird, at least after a little while, the Times reports today as part of a larger article about “the globalization of consumer services.” Tutoring companies train highly educated Indians who conference with American students via online chat; the arrangement costs families less than private tutoring here and gets them on-demand services. “I wasn’t sure how it would work,” a parent told the Times. “But, shocking to say, it’s gone very well.”

Check out Insideschools’ 2005 article about finding a tutor, where we took a short look at online tutoring services.

So, what about the academics at MAT? And how can a school turn around so quickly?

Fifth-graders in New York City who want a say in where they’ll go to middle school spend a lot of time schlepping through buildings and listening to speeches.

They don’t always know what to make of what they see and hear, but they certainly notice and covet extras like web design, fields and sports teams that were on display at a tour we took in Chinatown last week of MAT, also known as the Manhattan Academy of Technology.

“We want to give you what kids in New Jersey and Westchester have,’’ John De Matteo, MAT’s energetic physical education teacher, told parents and kids. “And if you want a sport we don’t have, we’ll try to get it here.’’

As a parent, I’m looking for a balance. Track teams and activities like play production and robotics are great, alongside a strong academic program that pushes kids to succeed and encourages them to think. I prefer small schools where my children are well known. I also want to make sure there is extra help and support if kids are struggling. And I really like hearing that staff enjoys working with awkward, unpredictable and sometimes impossible middle schoolers.

MAT, which moved to its new site after merging with PS 126 in 2003, appears to meet these requirements. It has about 300 kids in grades 6-8, with four classes per grade. The school’s newfound stature as “hot’’ reminds me of a fringe city neighborhood whose reputation soars with the arrival of Starbucks and FreshDirect home delivery.

On our tour, Principal Kerry Decker told us MAT has become “a rising star’’ – an honor bestowed by Manhattan Media to highlight noteworthy schools.

Success hasn’t been instant, though, and there is still plenty of trial and error. The school’s track record is just getting established. By many accounts, math, science and technology are already strong at MAT, with language arts and social studies improving rapidly.

“I think we are a somewhat eclectic school, with lots of strengths,’’ Decker told parents during the tour. She described her biggest challenge: “Hiring great middle school teachers, especially in math and science.’’

The staff seemed young and enthusiastic, and the art teacher impressed many of the kids on the tour, with her large, well equipped classroom filled with “way cool’’ projects.

Decker spoke of priorities I strongly agree with – lots of professional development, which translates into training to help teachers do their job better. “I’m in the classroom all the time,’’ Decker said. That signifies a strong instructional leader — an issue I’ve learned about from the Wallace Foundation.

MAT has an honors program, although the tour left some of us a bit confused as to how it works and who is eligible.

I’m particularly struck by the transformation of MAT because I spent many hours in the building (which also houses the elementary school PS 126) as a journalist, detailing an astonishing turnaround that took place during the tenure of former Principal Daria Rigney.

Rigney, now community superintendent in District Two, pushed hard to raise test scores and infuse a culture of literacy at PS 126. Her success did not go unnoticed: she was featured on PBS and promoted.

Six years later, parents in Battery Park City, Tribeca and elsewhere are choosing MAT over more convenient neighborhood schools or even private education. A friend of mine chose MAT over the middle school in her building.

I asked Rigney if she believes the academics match the amenities, which she wishes all middle schools could offer. She does, crediting principal Decker with maintaining a culture where teachers constantly want to improve. “They aren’t satisfied with just doing okay,’’ she said.
Success at any school depends largely on the quality of teachers and the continuous training they get, she noted.

When Rigney headed the school, teachers met every Thursday at 7:30 a.m. to discuss best practices and how to improve instruction. They still do.

What is happening at MAT, Rigney said, proves that with hard work, commitment and the right team, a school can be transformed.

“MAT is going to get even better,’’ Rigney said.

Read all of the “Middle School Muddle” series.

“Darth Klein” image from Eduwonkette, who has dressed up several of the city’s education leaders.

Happy Halloween! Today marks a holiday that often means fun and costumes in elementary schools and higher-than-usual rates of absenteeism in high schools, where mischief can emerge on Oct. 31. The DOE doesn’t have a uniform policy on Halloween celebrations, instead leaving decision-making up to individual schools. (In keeping with the DOE’s philosophy of giving more power to principals, this is a change from the recent past, when the DOE attempted to set a uniform, no-costume policy.) According to a Times article, some schools, such as PS 321 in Brooklyn, allow costumes but not toy weapons. Maybe the 321 kids will unsheathe their swords at the Park Slope Halloween Parade instead; it’s one of many Halloween events being held citywide. And the anti-sweets crowd has some (fun-killing) suggestions for how to keep Halloween healthy.

One city school where kids won’t be celebrating? Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Sciences in Brooklyn, where Halloween costumes were banned after a student dressed as Hitler infuriated teachers and classmates last year.

On Monday, the Sun reported that Governor Spitzer is investing billions of dollars into SUNY and other New York colleges to increase their presence in public middle and high schools.

This increased “collaboration” will come in the form of associate degree level classwork and more interaction between the universities and public students, some as young as 12 years old. Students involved in these programs would also receive increased financial aid and a guarantee that they would be able to go to a four-year college.

This IS a good idea.

Some might argue that putting kids in failing schools into college programs is unrealistic. It is not. In order for students to succeed in school it is vital that they have a goal, a future plan. High schools are a common part of middle school culture — they become part of a middle school students’ future plans and thus a large majority of middle school students end up in high school. In a great number of high schools, college is not a part of the culture. It is not within reach. It is not familiar.

This program could help many high school students, from schools without a college culture, to understand what college means and how possible and important it really is. It could increase the number of students with “college” somewhere in their future plans.

Then, once they have college in their sights this plan throws in a double-whammy. First, you get guaranteed college placement. (Awesome, right?) Second, you get financial aid bonuses. As a senior going through the college process with many of my friends, I see every day how vital these bonuses could be. It could mean the difference between succeeding in college and dropping out or not even going. Any program to encourage students not only to attend but also to succeed in college would not be complete without a financial aid aspect to it.

Getting colleges involved in high schools is always a good idea. For recognizing that, Governor Spitzer, I commend you. You are really doing it.

Looks like Jean Claude Brizard may be the next top DOE administrator to move on to greener pastures. He’s one of four contenders for the superintendency of the Rochester (N.Y.) Public Schools, which post a high school graduation rate even lower than New York City’s. On Monday, Brizard met with the selection committee in Rochester and told them what he would do to improve the schools, including bolster security, enroll more kids in pre-K, and increase vocational offerings. School board members told the local paper that Brizard “came very close” to meeting all their selection criteria; the board is meeting with the three other candidates this week.

In the last several years, Brizard has been the principal at George Westinghouse High School, a regional superintendent, and the DOE’s executive director of high schools. But despite his reputation as a pretty straight shooter (or perhaps because of it?), he didn’t land in any of the highest positions after the most recent reorganization. The Rochester Democrat-Gazette has an extended profile of Brizard.

The search for grants can be broken into four basic parts: needs assessment, funder research, grant writing, and implementation or spending the money. In this post, I’ll explain the first component, needs assessment.

Needs assessment means deciding what are the biggest problems at your school that can be helped by grants. In some schools, this might be science kits or refurbishing a community room. In my school the principal was going deaf because the lunch room has no sound insulation, so we applied for money to install acoustic panels. Also, kids seemed to never go out on field trips, so we asked for money to send them on field trips to orchards and symphony halls. Some grants are for special programs like visiting artists or conflict resolution training.

One thing I have learned about program grants is they need to fit in a busy teacher’s day, so it’s best if they support the existing curriculum, or else bring in special experiences that will free up teachers’ time to work with small groups of kids. For instance, if children leave the classroom for a piano lesson a half-class at a time, the remaining half can be given their math lesson with more personal attention.

The four parts of the grant search can be delegated to different people working on the grants team: one can canvass parents and teachers for grant ideas, and others can do the internet research for grants. That job is good for people who can only do work on their own time, late at night when the kids have gone to bed.

The consensus on the G+T changes is that they will make the programs more equitable in theory but will likely result in far fewer students being offered seats in gifted programs, especially in the districts that have a lively G+T culture, such as Brooklyn’s District 22 and District 3, which covers the Upper West Side.

Parents in those districts are concerned that many of the students who are currently thriving in gifted programs would not be eligible for them under the new plan, reducing the number of programs and seats in those districts. “I think it would be a shame if not a crime to in any way eliminate any of the gifted programs that District 22 has nurtured over the last 40 years,” a member of District 22’s CEC told the Times. But all seem to agree that expanding access for poor students and kids in districts with only a handful or even no G+T programs is a good thing. ““When I started here kids who took the test were fundamentally kids whose parents would pay for the tests,” Chancellor Klein told the Sun, and even now less than 10 percent of kids in some districts apply for gifted programs; in contrast, more than 60 percent of families in District 3 applied, the Sun reports.

The DOE has just released its long-awaited proposal for reforms to admission processes for the city’s gifted and talented programs, and parents have until Nov. 25 to comment on the proposal. The goal of the proposed changes, according to the DOE, is to “expand access to gifted programs and create a single, rigorous standard—based on national norms—for ‘giftedness.’” You can take a look at the DOE’s slideshow about the changes, but here are the highlights:

• All students will be tested for G+T at their schools, not at off-site testing centers.
• Evaluations will continue to be based on two assessments (as they were last year for the first time). Children will continue to take the OLSAT. The Gifted Rating Scale will be replaced by something called the Bracken School Readiness Assessment, which the DOE says is “easier to administer in schools to many children.”
  
• Children who take both tests will be given a composite score (75 percent OLSAT, 25 percent BSRA). Any child whose scores place him in the 95th percentile nationally will be guaranteed a slot in a gifted program in his district. Children whose scores are in the 97th percentile will be able to apply to the three citywide gifted schools: TAG, HunterAnderson, and NEST.
• Families will rank their choices from among the district and citywide options.
• OSEPO will place students. Parents will know whether their child is guaranteed a G+T slot by March 31 and will get their placement offers by May 31.

To make the process even more equitable, beginning in 2008, all students — not just those whose parents request an evaluation — will be tested for G+T eligibility.

The DOE says it also plans to enhance the quality of instruction in self-contained G+T programs citywide — quality, like admissions procedures, has varied from district to district — and to expand enrichment opportunities for all students, not just those whose scores qualify for G+T programs.

Parents undoubtedly have thoughts and concerns about the proposal. Attend a Town Hall meeting in your borough to learn more and give your feedback; the first meeting is Nov. 5 in Manhattan. See the Insideschools calendar for more dates. Through Nov. 25, you can also submit feedback via email or by phone at 212-374-5219..And be sure to post your feedback in the comments — we’re very interested to hear what parents think of the proposed changes!

After the state decided to forgo federal funds that would require schools to teach abstinence-only sex education, the DOE has announced that it is recommending a “research-based” high school sex ed program that Newsday says is “designed to encourage students to delay sexual activity while at the same time providing information about contraception and disease prevention.” The program, called Reducing the Risk, does not offer the comprehensive sex ed that advocates have called for, but it at least recognizes that teenagers need to learn about contraception and protection. However, the state still doesn’t require sex ed for high schoolers, so it’s anyone’s guess how many schools will choose to offer the program.

Gotham Gazette’s featured education article right now is about the lack of — and need for — quality sex ed in the city’s schools. One kid quoted in the piece works as a Teen Advocate for Planned Parenthood and describes some pretty incredible misinformation that she’s heard from other young people. If you’re a teen interested in improving the information kids get about sex issues, Planned Parenthood has three different programs you can join.

Saturday was the Specialized High School Admission Test! I think it went fairly well, considering the rain was pouring and I was really nervous.

The reading section of the test seemed pretty easy to me, at least easier then the sections that I had been studying off of, and that kind of caught me off guard. The math went smoothly too, for the first half; the next quarter of questions were challenging, and the last quarter were near impossible — some just because they were difficult problems, and some that I could have figured out with more time. In the end, I can only hope that the last couple of problems didn’t completely trip me up.

I only put down two schools on the specialized high school application, because I really had no interest in the others. Now, all that I can do is wait!

Yesterday, the Post confirmed something that many of us who are concerned about schools’ environmental impact have long suspected: few schools recycle, and the city doesn’t care that they aren’t following local laws or DOE directives. Even at Brooklyn’s Academy of Environmental Leadership, recyclables and trash are mixed together and thrown to the curb. The DOE could really be a leader in reducing its environmental footprint, but instead its lack of a recycling program is an embarrassment and evidence in a time of massive decentralization that some functions might be better carried out centrally.

For the NYC Student Union Student Government Project, the members of the union are profiling their own schools’ student government organizations. This is my entry on LaGuardia’s SGO.

At LaGuardia, our SGO is run by five elected officers and one hundred representatives appointed by application that meet every week.

The officers are the president (me), vice president, secretary, treasurer and, as of this year, a speaker. The first four positions are elected by the entire student body and the last, though appointed this year, will in the future be elected by returning SGO representatives.

The president and vice president both sit on the School Leadership Team and one of them (we switch off) sits on the Safety, Attendance, and C-30 (administration hiring) committees so as to actively advocate for our peers. The Secretary and Treasurer also appear at SLT meetings, though they do not vote.

In addition, the officers each serve as liaisons for the SGO’s nine committees, where the main work of the SGO is done. Each representative serves on one of the committees. This year’s committees are:

Academic: Dealing with academic issues that arise and advocating on behalf of students to the Academic APs.
Building Beautification: Working on improving the school environment by making it more appealing and sustainable.
College: Working with the College Office to improve LaGuardia’s college process.
Communications: Getting information out to the students by writing a section in the school’s weekly bulletin.
SNAP: The LaGuardia Student Performance Society, which produces student-generated art and performance (e.g. Poetry Slams, Hootenanies and the like).
Student Activities: Helping student organizations get funding and space and assisting them in the logistics of event planning.
Student Court: Students may appeal demerits or punishments before a court of their peers. (I’ll go more into detail in a few weeks)
Student Opinion: Actively seeking out student opinion on LaGuardia’s goings-on through polls and social networking sites.
Website: Runs the SGO website and works to improve the SGO’s internet presence.

Next post: How has LaGuardia’s SGO worked to improve student involvement and representation this year?

Cross-posted on NYC Students Blog

Tomorrow at 8 in the morning, the Specialized High School Admission Test will start.

Tension is definitely running high at my school, and the student body seems to have broken up into groups:

• the Majorly Stressed Out, or the kids whose lives depend on passing this test;
• the Middle Group, or the kids who would love to get in and are fairly worried, but still seem to have a clear head (this is me);
• the Minimally Stressed Out, or the kids who really want to get in but aren’t really concerned;
• and the Micro Group, the kids who are taking this test because their parents want them to, but have already decided to stay at our school for high school.

Some students are even skipping school today so as to rest up and cram in some last-minute studying.

I’m not ruling out my current school for another four years, but the key problem is right there: another four years. I think I’m just about ready for a change of scene. Now let’s hope the test tomorrow goes well enough to give me the options I want.

Wow. The Sun today reports that top DOE officials and aides will be eligible for bonuses based on the test scores of the students their responsibilities affect. According to the article, Chancellor Klein has asked about 100 top administrators to draft their own performance goals, which he and others will monitor. If they meet those goals, improve student test scores, and get good reviews from principals, the administrators could get performance bonuses as early as June.

I can’t even begin to figure out what I think about this new development. The incentives are coming fast and furious out of the Chancellor’s Office and at this point we have no way of telling how they will affect schools and students. But no one can say that the mayor and the chancellor aren’t doing a darn good job of replicating the features of the business world that they have long said they admire.

At NYC Public School Parents, Leonie Haimson is incredulous about the new plan. She writes:

So let me get this straight: if test scores improve enough in our schools, even if this leads to a ridiculous amount of test prep and/or cheating, and if graduation rates improve, even if this causes increasing numbers of students to be suspended, transferred or discharged from our schools, then the already overpaid officials at Tweed will get even more of our taxpayer money for being able to further degrade the conditions for authentic learning at our schools.

I’m not quite so cynical, but it’s valuable to remember that with higher stakes comes increased potential for corruption. For that reason, the DOE needs independent oversight of all of its data — before they’re used to make decisions, not audited after the fact. If we could trust the DOE when it says things are on the right track, I would feel a lot better about its leaders getting performance bonuses.

“You are not going to believe this,’’ my 10-year-old son announced at dinner this week, after his second middle school tour. He was telling his older brother about the impressive, amenities-rich IS 126 in Chinatown, also known as the Manhattan Academy of Technology.

“They have a climbing wall! And a surfing club! They have 34 different sports, and they have actual fields – it’s crazy!’’

Big brother, a jaded seventh-grader at the Clinton School for Artists and Writers, wasn’t impressed, even though his middle school – which he absolutely loves – has few such frills.

“Is that how you are going to judge a middle school?’’ he asked tartly. “You are going to choose a school for a climbing wall? Are the academics any good?”

It’s hard for grown-ups to imagine what it’s like for all these 9- and 10-year-olds, hiking up stairs, visiting different neighborhoods and peering into classrooms. They aren’t thinking about specialized high school placement, curriculum and teacher qualifications.

Our 5th-grade teacher at PS 150 in Tribeca gave parents a little insight into what the kids are thinking about on tours. Seems these little consumers have developed a savvy reserved for New York City apartment hunters: obsession with size, location and, of course, amenities.

A tour – good or bad – can make an enormous impression. And MAT impresses. The kids peered into a math class, saw a large, well equipped art room and heard about clubs, band, fashion design, robotics, web design and a typing class. They learned the classes are smaller (about 25 kids in most cases) than many other middle schools.

But what about the academics?

That’s the most critical question to me and I’ll take a closer look in another post. It’s hard to tell during a whirlwind tour and the tail end of a lesson crammed with visitors.

Here’s how my 10-year-old answered big brother on that question: “They had an amazing science room, with fish tanks and frogs,’’ he said. “And I really liked the principal. She seemed very nice, and very organized. But I don’t think the writing I saw was as good as the writing at Clinton.’’

Then he was back to the amenities: “They already have every sport there is, practically,’’ he repeated. “And they have fields, actual fields. I didn’t know there could be actual fields in New York City.’’

Read all of the “Middle School Muddle” series.

Very sad news from IS 211 in Canarsie, where a student died earlier this month after contracting a particularly vicious form of drug-resistant staph infection that has been spreading in schools across the country. The bacteria is spread through the kind of contact that kids, especially athletes, routinely have, and while most people who are infected recover from the infection, it can kill those with depressed immune system. The state has just issued guidelines for schools to stanch the spread of the bacteria but the best advice is simple: wash your hands and tell your kids to wash theirs frequently, as well. This might be a good time to invest in some bottles of hand sanitizer.

Update: If your child has a wound that is not healing properly, seek medical attention — the Post says the IS 211 student got the infection from a wound suffered while playing basketball and had what a classmate said were “red and yellow sores … bad sores” before falling ill. And parents at IS 211 are wondering why it took so long for them to find out about the health issues at the school; the student died Oct. 14 but the school didn’t send a letter home until this week.

Last week, I took my last tour before I make my high school decision. (Applications are due Nov. 30.) It was a small school on the Upper East Side, about 45 minutes from my apartment by car. The building was tiny, neat, and clean, and the walls were plastered with photographs and student artwork. The curriculum seemed fairly rigorous, although nothing about it seemed to stand out to me in particular. The students that roamed the halls were polite and informative; however, I sensed a slight lack of interest. There seemed to be a fair amount of science equipment, and there was a beautiful art room filled with unbelievably unique student work.

After touring this school, I think that I would perhaps consider it as a last resort. The student body seemed to be a little bit different than the kinds of people that I am generally used to, but the school did seem like it had a very nurturing atmosphere.

This weekend is the Specialized High School Admission Test and kids and parents are nervous about how to rank the schools on the application. Some schools are saying you should rank them first if you want to be admitted — this is not true. Filling out the application is intimidating but not complicated. Here’s what to do:

Rank all of the schools you want to go and none of the schools you don’t want to go to. Rank them in the order you’d like to attend them. Then take a deep breath and do your best on the test. The computer will match you with the school highest on your list for which your score makes you eligible.

Still confused? Check out Insideschools’ advice from last year and a 2004 Ask Judy on the subject — the answer is still true.

And remember to eat a good breakfast because you can’t bring in food or drink to the test. You can, however, take bathroom breaks — just ask the proctor for permission.

We all complain about the size of the communications corps at the DOE. Sometimes it seems ludicrous for a schools chancellor to have a whole staff devoted to answering his email. But then again, with so many handlers, it’s unlikely that Joel Klein will ever be able to make this kind of mistake.

With new incentive programs being announced what seems like every other day, it’s easy to forget where the city’s presentation of financial incentives for good behavior began — way back in June, with the announcement of the Opportunity NYC program. The program, which offers cash incentives not just to poor students but to their families as well, has gotten quietly underway this fall; according to a DOE memo, the program apparently is being administered in “bi-monthly periods” and the first one comes to a close at the end of the month. Before then, parents will have a chance to earn $25 for every parent-teacher conference they attend. (Check out the Insideschools calendar for conference dates.) Principals have been instructed to tell their teachers to sign forms documenting parents’ attendance. This is the first I’ve heard about the actual mechanics of the program — has anyone come across any other information?

Just a reminder that Chief Family Engagement Officer Martine Guerrier is taking the “Ask Martine and Friends” show to Staten Island tonight. Along with other DOE officials, she’ll be giving an overview of the reorganized DOE. There will also be a question-and-answer session where, according to the DOE, “question cards written by parents in the audience will be answered by the panel.” The event’s at Petrides from 6-8:30 p.m.

The DOE is maneuvering to offer 12,000 “potential dropouts” a year of college courses while still in high school, the New York Times reports today. The $100 million initiative, which the DOE hopes to launch in 2009 with or without state funding, is predicated on the idea that kids in dual-enrollment programs are more likely to graduate from high school and enroll and stay in college. A recent report, based on analysis of data from New York and Florida, advanced this conclusion; the report also found that low-income kids benefit more from dual-enrollment than their wealthier peers but that schools frequently set standards for admission to college courses that exclude many students.

The DOE plans to eliminate those constraints and in fact to push the neediest kids to take the new courses. Many are excited about the initiative because it could help families save on college costs and get disaffected kids excited about school. Others, such as Leon Botstein, who as president of Bard College has pioneered rigorous early college schools in the city, are concerned that most high schools can’t provide college-caliber instruction or atmosphere. “The idea would be to improve the quality of teaching and the treatment of students as adults. This is easier said than done,” he told the Times. “You can’t do it in the environment of the traditional high school. You need entirely different faculty.” It’s not clear whether following those recommendations is part of the DOE’s plan.

No one can argue that academically proficient at-risk and low-income kids shouldn’t have access to AP courses, Regents-level work in middle school, and college courses. I’ve certainly visited schools that don’t offer advanced courses because they think their students can’t handle the work. But the key to high expectations is consistency, and kids don’t become “potential dropouts” because they’ve had excellent education since they entered school. How can the DOE can possibly expect kids who are reading and writing far below grade level to complete college-level work? Shouldn’t it devote energy (and state and private dollars) to providing engaging high school-level instruction so kids don’t have to enroll in remedial courses in college, a major problem in the CUNY schools? Or perhaps the DOE thinks its high school reforms will be sufficiently successful by 2009 that all kids will be ready for college-level work.

I’m also curious about the recent report extolling the values of dual enrollment. I haven’t read it yet, but maybe someone who has can answer this question: Is there evidence to suggest enrolling in college courses actually causes students to graduate from high school at a higher rate? Or is there just a correlation between the two outcomes? It seems more than possible that they are simply both products of better academic preparation (possibly gained at home) and higher motivation. If that’s true, enrolling kids with low skills who haven’t been motivated to excel before might not achieve the same results. Sounds like the DOE will need a benefactor to fund incentives for enrollment in college courses.

The big news today is the uproar in Park Slope over the possibility of strippers at a Halloween festival held at MS 51. The director of Puppetry Art Theatre, a non-profit that provides arts family programming, including in homeless shelters and hospitals, told the Daily News he’s happy for any volunteers, even those who work at the nightclub Scores. But when MS 51 Principal Lenore Berner got wind of the invitation — and, presumably, the fears of her parents — she asked that the dancers be uninvited. Now no Scores dancers (who were planning to wear street clothes to hand out candy), bartenders, or officerworkers will attend the festival. But lest you think all Park Slope parents are nuts, as the gossip site Gawker argued in its post on the saga, take note that one parent sensibly told the Daily News, “As long as they keep their clothes on I don’t see the problem.”

Another parent, Shelidah Duprey, and I explained some fundraising fundamentals at a conference organized by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer on Saturday (thanks to Stringer, hundreds of parents got to hear some inspiring speakers talk about how the most important ingredient to school success is family members’ constant love and involvement). In the fundraising panel, Shelida talked about school-based fundraisers like book fairs, raffles, bake sales, fall festivals, and skating parties that help her small elementary school raise about $17,000 each year.

These events, spaced throughout the year, take a fair amount of parent energy, but the time spent is paid back in community spirit that benefits the children in myriad ways. Shelidah mentioned that a lot of companies are happy to donate to school events if someone from a school is willing to take the time to call the general managers of stores or the corporate giving departments of corporations. Shelida’s school gets regular donations of drinks, coffee, donuts, ice cream, and more that parents can sell at events that benefit the children. All the money goes straight to the kids (if the DOE wants to know what parents want, it has only to look what successful schools do with their parent-raised funding) for programs like storytellers, violin and piano lessons, and field trips. In her school the older children get to go on two camping trips each year!

Schools can complement these kinds of fundraisers with corporate, foundation, and public sector grants — the subjects of my next post.

The city’s schools are not immune to the wave of hate that has swept the country recently. When the football team from Harlem’s Wadleigh Secondary School visited Staten Island Tech earlier this month, Wadleigh players found what appeared to be racist slurs written on their bench. Then last week, someone drew 22 swastikas on doors and walls at Murry Bergtraum High School for Business Careers in downtown Manhattan. And today, the papers are reporting that a noose was sent to the black principal of Canarsie High School in Brooklyn; Chancellor Klein has just sent out a statement condemning the attack. These kind of unsettling events are a reminder that schools ought to be teaching more than just the content and skills that appear on standardized tests.

Last week New York City Comptroller William Thompson came out in strong support of added physical education programs in New York City schools. According to a press release that his office issued, he has called for more PE because of the mass health problems of New York City students, especially those from low-income neighborhoods.

This is an important issue and a serious problem, but more physical education is not the way to approach it. This is in no way an attack on Comptroller Thompson, but on the more general and widespread notion that phys ed classes could possibly give students the amount of exercise they need and that more of it will help reduce youth health issues like obesity.

The important function of physical education is to educate students on how to get healthy and take care of their bodies. Students do not need this class five days a week. In many situations, my school included, added phys ed classes have cluttered up schedules so badly that the school had to extend the regular day to 4:10 p.m. Healthier students won’t come from more phys ed classes, but from creating a culture of exercise in the younger grades and changing government policies that propagate the unhealthy lifestyles of many students.

Recess, for one, is a great way to create a culture of exercise. As Jonathan Kozol points out in his latest book, Letters to a Young Teacher, playgrounds and recess are disappearing from low-income schools because the No Child Left Behind Act has increased the need for test preparation. (Linda Perlstein makes the same point in her new book, Tested.) Under this system of high-stakes testing as a gauge of educational “results,” recess is deemed unnecessary. In the low-income neighborhoods of New York City and the rest of the country, however, recess is vital in improving student health. It gives students the chance to use their bodies and also gives them time to develop their imaginations (thus leading to better health, mentally and physically, for all).

Other important factors in youth health are the environment and nutrition. As one of my fellow NYCSUers pointed out at Monday’s meeting: “My school did have a playground, but it was right next to a highway.” Pollution is a real contributing factor to poor health among low-income students and must be dealt with. Right now, asthma rates among Harlem youth are at crisis levels.

And our nutrition can be improved by changing the Congressional Farm Bill that determines what food producers get federal subsidies. This week the Senate is taking a look at the bill, which has been criticized by organizations like Eating Liberally for subsidizing producers of unhealthy foods (Twinkies and fast food come to mind) over those who produce more healthy and nutritious comestibles.

And if legislators care about kids’ health, it also might be a good idea for them to renew SCHIP. Just a thought.

The word in the email pipeline is that the Regents may be voting today on whether to accept the city’s proposed Contract for Excellence. When last we heard, the state had mysteriously delayed its approval timeline and parent advocates were calling on the Regents not to approve the contract as it was proposed because it did not adequately address class size issues, even though it was required by law to. We’ve heard from experts at the State Education Department that the state has serious questions about whether the DOE is really directing new funding where it’s supposed to go — into schools with the greatest need.

Last month, the city’s Independent Budget Office released an audit showing that despite $200 million in class size reduction money, most grade school classrooms were overcrowded and any decline in class size could be attributed to decreasing enrollment, not DOE efforts to reduce class size. So the Regents are wise to be skeptical of the DOE’s newest promises as well, especially given the city’s many new testing and accountability initiatives that require new funds. Let’s hope the Regents hold the DOE to its word — and to the law — on class size and other improvements.

The Regents’ meeting today (starting at 11 a.m.) and tomorrow is being broadcast online, so you can watch the discussion for yourself. Let us know what you see!

With so many small, themed high schools not having much to do with their themes at all, it’s exciting to see that kids at Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and Technology are now running their own private North Fork bank for the Roosevelt campus. The bank sounds like a useful laboratory for student workers and those who will learn to save. This weekend, the Times added color to the story, describing how the seniors working in the bank are teaching their classmates good financial habits with only a modicum of moralizing:

“Well, what do y’all do when you get paid?”

“I pay all my bills,” answered a blond girl in tight pink jeans. “And then I go to the street.”

“And do you save anything?” Jeffrey asked.

A dubious look was her answer.

Just a reminder that there are high school fairs in each borough from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. both days this weekend featuring the schools in that borough. If you missed the citywide fair last month, or you need more information about a few schools you are considering before filling out your application at the end of November, head over to the fair in your borough. Check out the Insideschools calendar for details on locations.

It’s October now, and as a 5th grade parent, I can’t be in denial any longer. The middle school search process and tours have begun in earnest. Parties, PTA events, pick-up and drop-off are marked by parent conversations, comparisons and discussions.

It’s an obsession familiar to me as both a middle school parent (I have a son in 7th grade so I’ve done this once before) and as a journalist who writes regularly about schools.

I’m starting out this search as muddled and intimidated as most parents, although I have three advantages:

1. I’ve done it before.
2. I have great access to the top experts in U.S. education through my job as assistant director of the Hechinger Institute for Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University, where I help plan and run seminars aimed at educating journalists about pressing issues in education.
3. I’m privileged to send my two children to schools in Manhattan’s District Two, where there are several really good choices. Although some of my son’s classmates are veering toward private school, there isn’t the same kind of despair I’ve heard about middle schools in my career covering New York City’s 1.1. million public school students for New York Newsday years ago.

I’ll be blogging my search and plan on sharing any insights, interviews, observations and details about the public schools I’m looking at, described in CSD 2 Region 9 Middle School Directory 2006-07. (New middle school directories, reflecting the elimination of the regions, will be out in December.)

But let me say this: the more I learn about education, the less I often feel I know. And, mostly, my search will be guided by my 5th grader, who would prefer to remain at PS 150 in Tribeca with his buddies.

I’m also aware that this decision ultimately may be made via small quirks that can have nothing at all to do with education — my son’s desire to be with his good friends, mine that he has a reasonable commute, his excitement over a band, track or soccer team, for example.

I’ll share impressions, tips and expert interviews along the way! I invite you to share yours as well.

As the Times notes today, reaction so far on the city’s new “merit pay” program has been mixed. The Times article talks to a cast of reformers, teachers, and former teachers who think the plan is interesting but may not be effective in the way the DOE hopes. For now, I’m going to turn now to what parents and teachers are saying online.

One parent leader told us he sees the agreement as a victory for the UFT because it reduces the retirement age, unheard of in any field. And the UFT’s own blog, Edwize, is predictably thrilled about the agreement, saying, “The agreements create positive, pro-active programs that address two major issues which face our schools: attracting and retaining quality educators in our schools, and creating collaborative learning environments where teachers have real voice.”

But other teachers are more skeptical about both of those claims. I’ve seen many comments expressing skepticism that teachers will actually influence the way the money is distributed given that the the principal and his or her appointee make up half of the four-member school-based committees. In the comments on Edwize, a teacher writes, “I sit on a few different ‘committees in my school.’ The meetings all follow the same formula. My principal tells us what she/he plans on doing and we get to nod approval.”

NYC Educator, who opposes the current UFT leadership in general, writes that teachers have paid twice for the change in pension structure, which the UFT indicated was on the horizon when the union’s contract was signed in 2005, but only gotten it once. Some, such as Jim Horn on School Matters, have picked up on the line in the original Times article that said the plan would “allow [UFT head Randi] Weingarten, a potential candidate to lead the national American Federation of Teachers, to cast herself as a reform-minded union leader” to support their claims that the new deal is not necessarily good for teachers, even though it was negotiated by the woman charged with advocating for them.

And some teachers are simply speechless.

What do parents think? Again on Edwize, the head of ACORN’s education committee, a parent, writes, “The plan isn’t merit pay. It’s $20 million for 200 of New York’s lowest performing schools.” She also writes that the program is a “savvy investment” that will pay off big in terms of teacher retention for good teachers.

But NYC Public School Parents criticizes the plan’s dependence on test scores as practically the only determinant of bonus eligibility, saying it will lead to corruption at the school level. The parents’ blog also weighs in on the pension issue, noting that the agreement will give an incentive for the most experienced teachers to retire.

From the policy angle, it’s a question whether the plan is actually a form of merit pay at all. Judging from the language in today’s article, the Times appears to have concluded that it is not, drawing on merit pay proponent Eric Hanushek’s quote in the Post, where he said, “This is just group rewards.” (The Post and the Daily News, however, enthusiastically continue to call it a merit pay plan, leading NYC Educator to write sarcastically, “If the Post and the News both like it, it must be great for teachers.”)

On the internet, big questions seem to be getting lost a little in the pitched discussion over contract details and philosophies of education. Will the plan make a difference in spreading good teachers across the city? Will it entice good teachers to move to low-performing schools? Will it make bad teachers leave the field? The folks quoted in the Times article think it’s too soon to tell, but that the amount of money probably is not large enough to encourage teachers to change their place of work and quality of life. One reformer told the Times the biggest benefit is that the bonus plan “sends a signal that your performance, your effort, your talent, is recognized and rewarded in this industry.”

I’ve spent so much time blogging and visiting schools that I haven’t had much time to watch TV lately. But I’ve settled in for a Thursday evening of “Jeopardy!” and “Ugly Betty” and I just saw for the first time the Fund for Public Schools’ ad touting the turnaround at Evander as proof of the DOE’s improvement. It’s a slick ad — part of a campaign called “Keep it Going NYC” — but as other bloggers have noted, it makes some questionable claims. Gotham Gazette’s Wonkster has a roundup of opinion from the excellent Eduwonkette to Edwize to NYC Public School Parents. All of these blog say Evander’s “turnaround” has less to do with leadership than with the fact that the types of students the building serves has changed, an outcome forewarned by a Parents for Inclusive Education report last year that highlighted new small high schools’ failure to serve students with disabilities.

The Fund for Public Schools, which encourages private donations to the schools, is running several ads, all of which can be viewed on the fund’s website. What do you think of them?

Today, I stayed home sick (somehow my back went out yesterday after a long School Leadership Team meeting), so I figured I’d be productive and write a post. A few days ago, I sent out my first college application so I am a little “college-on-the-brain”ed. It looks like other people are too.

In September, Deborah Bial, the founder of the Posse Foundation, won a MacArthur “genius grant” of $500,000. I have a lot of friends who are currently going through the Posse process and they are really working hard so that if they win they could end up at the one of the great schools that Posse is connected to. Posse is a pretty innovative way to encourage students from NYC to go to and succeed in college. Its strategy is sending students in groups, or posses, of about ten students to one college where they would be more comfortable and eager to continue because they come into the school with a built-in posse.

Another interesting strategy for getting kids to go to and succeed in college was announced last week.

Though controversial, the plan would give students up to $1,000 for scoring well on an Advanced Placement exam. As some of you may remember, my fellow students and I were a bit uncomfortable with Opportunity NYC; however, I’m kind of into this new plan.

Studies have shown that students who take AP courses are more likely to succeed in college. Then, you ask, why doesn’t every student take AP courses? In my experience students refrain from taking AP courses for several reasons:

1) Their school doesn’t offer the AP course they’re interested in.
2) They have a time-consuming job and can’t bear the extra work.
3) They don’t see college as a real option.

Seems to me that this program could alleviate those problems. It could encourage schools to offer more AP courses through the extra funding they’d receive. It could make taking an AP course more accessible for students who need the money. And it could encourage more students to pursue a college education, now that they have some idea of what a college course looks like.

The reason I prefer this program to Opportunity NYC is that this uses the cash-for-kids formula to promote the idea of going to college and to give students the abilities to succeed. Even though both problems draw similar criticisms, I feel that Opportunity NYC was more of an end in itself and didn’t work to promote future plans so much.

Do I contradict myself? Just a little? Okay then, I contradict myself. This is the New York City public school system. There’s a lot going on.

I don’t usually like to post about incidents at individual schools that only involve one kid. The Post and the Daily News get a lot of mileage out of stories where affronted parents and kids tell their tale, but you can never be sure whether their stories point out real flaws in their school, although undoubtedly they sometimes do. But today the Daily News is reporting that a 1st grader at Agnes Humphrey School for Leadership in Red Hook was bound with tape by two older students, who threatened to throw him down the stairs, and I think the situation deserves a little attention.

Adults intervened quickly, the child wasn’t hurt, and one 9th grader was suspended for bullying and intimidation. The school has only recently expanded to include high school grades, and the mother says in the article, “Teenagers are going to be teenagers and they are going to be doing things that aren’t appropriate for younger kids,” reflecting the argument made by angry parents at other elementary schools where the DOE has tried to place middle and high schools. At most schools I’ve visited, kids in different school levels keep to themselves, but at Agnes Humphrey, these fears appear to have been borne out.

Also mentioned in the article: another older student was arrested “after becoming belligerent with authorities.” Another downside of housing middle and high schools in the same building as elementary schools? Younger kids may be exposed to tensions between school safety agents and students.

Many schools are in for a treat today — it’s PENCIL’s 14th annual “Principal for a Day” event. The non-profit, whose expanded name is Public Education Needs Civic Involvement in Learning, has since 1994 recruited business leaders and community leaders to spend part of the day in a public school. (By 1:30 p.m., participants will retire to Tavern on the Green for a celebratory luncheon.) Often, the Principal for a Day partnership becomes a long relationship that brings financial resources to schools. At Park East High School, for example, a former PENCIL principal for a day funded a new library, and at the New School for Arts and Sciences in the Bronx, the former CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA paid for science labs. PENCIL now has imitators in other cities and even abroad.

The mayor has just announced a massive merit pay plan for the city’s teachers. About 200 schools this year will be eligible for awards of up to $3,000 per teacher, with responsibility for distribution falling to school-based committees.

Corporate-minded education reformers have been promoting the idea of merit pay for teachers for years, but it hasn’t gained too much traction because of opposition by teachers unions. Joel Klein hadn’t been able to get a program in place here until now because of the UFT’s opposition, but UFT president Randi Weingarten stood with the mayor at his press conference today, so I guess the issue has been hammered out.

All that’s clear at this point is that New York City truly is the site of an educational experiment of enormous proportions and that Klein is a master at moving private funds into the public sector. We can only hope that the folks who belong to the Research Partnership for New York City Schools are able to isolate the effects of the many different incentives that are going into place to improve the performance of parents, teachers, and students. Good research could generate important information for school reformers everywhere.

UPDATE: The press release is up now at the city’s website.

Saying the job as principal of Khalil Gibran International Academy quickly turned from an “American dream” to an “American nightmare,” Debbie Almontaser said at her press conference yesterday that she was forced to resign in August. As expected, she also announced that she is reapplying for the job now and also suing the DOE for violating her civil rights. The DOE isn’t taking her application seriously; the press office issued a statement saying, “The chancellor agreed with [Almontaser’s] decision, accepted her resignation, and now considers the matter closed.” Discussion is continuing in the comments on the Times’ City Room blog coverage, and unfortunately, I’m guessing that those who agitated for Almontaser’s ouster also feel they have more to say.

Insideschools has just posted a bunch of new pieces. As promised, we have a full account of AFC Director Kim Sweet’s report to the Citywide Council on High Schools last week. We also have a primer for where to go in the reorganized DOE when you have specific problems; parent questions answered by Judy, our resident college counselor, and, for the first time, a school psychologist; and the first new reviews of the school year. Head on over to the home page for more. And be sure to check out your school’s page, which we’ve now updated with School Support Organization and network leader information!

Uh oh. Recently departed DOE deputy chancellor Andres Alonso is having a tough time in his new home, Baltimore.

Only a couple of months into his term as CEO of the Baltimore City Public Schools, Alonso has angered the teachers union by trying to get principals to require that they spent 45 minutes a week planning collaboratively with their colleagues. Sounds innocuous enough, but Baltimore teachers are working without a contract and aren’t happy that Alonso is stripping them of precious planning time without their consent. Last week, teachers marched to call for Alonso’s ouster.

Sounding very much like someone else we know, Alonso told teachers in August that one of his top priorities is to “devolve resources, autonomy and decision-making to schools” — but he is also trying to expand the role of his office. It sounds like he is trying to collapse both phases of the recent reforms in New York into one but foundering without the unwavering support of a mayor who fully controls the schools.

Good luck to 10th and 11th graders, who are all taking the PSAT this morning, thanks to the DOE, which is paying for the test. The test is used to screen kids for the National Merit Scholarship Competition and is also a useful diagnostic to see how students can prepare for the SAT used for college admission. At last week’s Citywide Council on High Schools meeting, one council member expressed concern that kids are taking the PSAT for no reason, and a high school superintendent said schools are getting more instruction this year about how to use PSAT scores to help kids beef up their skills before the higher-stakes SAT.

This is kind of late notice, but if you are interested in education law or just want to show support for David Bloomfield, education professor at Brooklyn College and past president of the Citywide Council on High Schools, head over to Book Court in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, tonight for a party celebrating the release of his new book, American Public Education Law. The book is immensely readable and a great resource for students and teachers as well as legal professionals. Plus, Book Court is an awesome independent bookstore and a very pleasant place to hang out. The party starts at 7 p.m. Map

If you like what you hear tonight, come buy the book here at Insideschools’ bookstore!

At this point, you’ve probably heard that the DOE is rolling out a new program, titled Reach NYC, to reward high-achieving high school students with cash for passing scores on Advanced Placement exams — ranging from $500 to a just-passing score to $1,000 for a perfect one. The program is privately funded, thanks to the work of reformer Whitney Tilson, who blogged about the launch, and will start this year in 25 public and six private schools in the city. In addition to the student rewards, schools — and possibly principals — with large numbers of students who pass AP exams will get cash of their own. This program is similar but not related to the DOE’s Opportunity NYC program, which will pay younger kids in needy schools smaller amounts for their academic performance and behavior.

I happen to believe that kids shouldn’t get cash rewards for success in school. I especially think that in this case, because passing scores on AP exams can translate into college credits, which can net kids savings in excess of $1,000 an exam. But I can also see potential policy benefits in finding out whether financial incentives improve student performance. The original cash-for-kids plan is troubling but could yield meaningful information. I don’t see how the AP initiative could possibly do that because as far as I can tell, the “incentives” will be operating on kids who are already successful.

The new program was announced at the selective Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem, where students will be eligible for the money. FDA has about 1,500 students in grades 6-12. Divided evenly, that would mean there are about 215 kids in each grade. AP courses are most typically offered to 11th and 12th graders; only a very few schools nationwide allow students younger than that to take AP courses except in exceptional circumstances. So we know that about half of all students in 11th and 12th grade are taking AP courses at FDA. How does this rate of AP enrollment stack up?

Jay Mathews of the Washington Post has been monitoring AP nationwide for years, using test-taking rates to compile a “Challenge Index” of the nation’s high schools. Any school where students take at least one test per graduating senior makes the list; Mathews says only five percent of all high schools qualify. So even if each kid taking AP courses at FDA is taking only one, the school would rank at the low end of the top 5 percent of all schools nationwide, according to Mathews’ index. And 80 percent of FDA’s test-takers pass their exams, a more-than-respectable rate at any school. (Those are just the numbers in the New York Times article; the Daily News’s coverage makes it sound like 350 kids are currently taking AP classes.) Sure, FDA can do better, but in a city where, according to the Times, only 1 percent of black students pass an AP exam, are its kids the ones who need incentives?

Roland Fryer, the DOE’s Chief Equality Officer, is absent from the coverage of this new initiative. I wonder if he is involved in it at all. With a Harvard economist on the DOE’s payroll, I would hope for more rigorous experimental conditions for an expensive project like this one. Or else the DOE and the private groups distributing money to its students should stop calling cash payments “incentives” and call them what they really are — salaries for kids.

This week is the national School Nutrition Association’s National School Lunch Week. Parents, take a day off from making lunch this week and ask your kid to eat cafeteria food to support efforts by the DOE’s Office of SchoolFood to make school lunches healthier, more local, and more appealing. Kids, you can vote for your favorite nutritious school lunch.

And for the Connecticut-based “Two Angry Moms,” this week is also the National School Lunch-In. They want parents to “do lunch” with their kids this week to talk about nutrition and investigate the healthiness of school lunches. The two moms, a rabblerouser and a documentary filmmaker, have also made a movie about school lunches that they say “offers an inside look at what’s on the menu in many of the nation’s school cafeterias.” The movie is currently being screened in house parties; you can sign up to host a viewing party in your home.

I thought the controversy and media tug-of-war had died down over at Khalil Gibran International Academy, where this summer founding principal Debbie Almontaser resigned after drawing the wrath of the press for her edgy statements about the Arab world, and I guess some people aren’t happy about the peace and quiet. Today, Almontaser will deliver her application for the open principal position and she is bringing along a coalition called Communities in Support of KGIA to support her. They’ll be holding a press conference on the steps of City Hall at 5 p.m., where Almontaser will speak out publicly for the first time about what happened this summer. She now says her resignation was forced. KGIA parents will be there, so it seems Almontaser’s influence extends into the school even though she is not working there. It could be interesting — if anyone goes, please fill us in on what happens!

Last Saturday, I took the test for that small school near my apartment. The test itself was all right, but I felt that the essay question was extremely vague, and I’m not sure if I did my best. The math was fairly simple; however, there were some hard questions that I’d had never seen before. After having this experience, I’m just happy to have gotten through one test. I now have a better feel for exactly what the Specialized High School Admission Test will be like. I know that I am much better prepared for this test, coming up on Oct. 27, than I was for the past one, because of my tutoring, practice tests, and overall better knowledge of the information that’s going to be on it.

With roughly two weeks to go, my tutoring is almost up and the stress levels are running high. Students at my school are anxiously awaiting the day of the test, anticipating that feeling of “it’s out of my hands now.” I guess all I can do now is study!

Some people never learn. Just a month after taking heat for administrators’ failure to call 911 quickly when a student suffered a stroke, troubled Jamaica High School is in the news again — this time because of a new directive aimed at preventing 911 calls from the school. The memo, written by someone new because the author of the last one was removed from the school, outlines four steps school personnel must take before calling 911. The goal is likely to cut down on incident reports and improve the school’s numbers, but in a real emergency, as a teacher told the Daily News, “by step four, the kid’s already dead.” Just another reason for kids not to feel safe in school.

Tis the season for fall festivals, and my kids and I spent a few happy hours this weekend eating cotton candy and seeing old friends, watching rock band karaoke, and seeing if we still fit on the elementary school monkey bars. The parents did a fantastic job running the lollipop toss and cupcake decorating booths, painting faces, and manning a hamburger grill. Fall festivals don’t make all that much money compared with the effort parents put in to organize them; that’s why some people call this type of fundraiser a “community-builder.”

Community-builders may not meet all a school’s financial needs, but they make people feel closer, proud to be part of the school community. Actually, a bake sale or fall fest can be just as important as a big grant: the money a PTA earns can be spent entirely according to how parents perceive the weak spots, whereas grants usually must be spent on whatever the funder dictates.

Smaller pots of money can be useful to schools in different ways from larger pots. With $100 from a bake sale you can buy a “writing center” with a nice collection of crayons and markers and paper. With $10,000 from a fall fest you can run a teacher grant program in a medium-sized school, helping teachers buy whatever they dream will improve the classroom: an area rug, books on tape, a grow light and plants, biographies, bright colored posters, printer ink, a digital camera to document class projects. This is found money, a treasure whose value is magnified for the effort that went into getting it.

I’ve been meaning to share notes from last week’s City Council hearing on school safety for days. The press did a pretty good job sharing the central issue of the hearing: it’s unclear whether DOE employees or NYPD employees have the final say on school safety and discipline decisions, and the lack of clarity creates flammable conditions in schools that give rise to incidents like the one at East Side Community High School last week.

But the issue is more than one of confusion. Community leaders and students took to the stand in the late afternoon to describe the ways that aggressive policing detracts from a learning environment. Kids described being arrested and hauled out of school by safety agents after breaking minor rules, such as by writing on a desk or cutting class. They also described harassment by school safety agents that didn’t result in arrest. Every student mentioned missing class time as one outcome of his or her interaction with police in school.

Kids described psychic losses as well. Jonathan Clark, a senior at Aviation High School, where he is president of the honor society, described the day last spring when radnom scanners came to his school. The scene was one of confusion and screaming, Clark said, with agents unclear about what to confiscate; they took some students’ school equipment and birthday cupcakes, while allowing others to choose whether their cell phone or iPod was taken. Students missed hours of class waiting in line, and the day was ruined. Clark said, “Every other day there is such morale and happiness, and on that day it was the exact opposite.” Another student echoed Clark’s concern when he saw random scanning at Bryant High School: “I thought that something had happened and I was scared.”

As the Legal Aid Society’s Nancy Ginsberg noted, “You could probably find probable cause for arrest every 20 minutes” in schools. That doesn’t mean that having police in schools — and there are nearly 5,000 school safety agents in New York City’s schools — is necessary or wise. Representatives of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which released a report earlier this year decrying “aggressive” policing in the schools, spoke about alternative discipline strategies, such as Positive Behavior Intervention System, that have been successful elsewhere. Those strategies are more flexible and less punitive than giving control to school safety agents, and they are administered by those charged with carrying out schools’ educational missions.

Kids from the Urban Youth Collaborative, who said they didn’t want to identify their schools out of fear of retaliation, repeatedly said that incidents in their schools “can be solved” if school safety agents were simply more respectful toward them. The student from Bryant said, “I don’t think the NYPD knows how to deal with young people.” Keeping kids out of class and teaching them that the police are their enemies? With such terrible teachers on staff, NYPD really shouldn’t get involved in schools.

One final note: Council members were interested in what happened to a 1998 Memorandum of Understanding between the DOE and NYPD effectively transferring authority over school safety to the NYPD. That memorandum was supposed to be revisited in 2002, but by that time Mayor Bloomberg had been elected and given control of the schools, and no joint committee met to extend the arrangement. Kathleen Grimm, deputy chancellor for finance and operations, argued that mayoral control made such memorandums unnecessary because the mayor oversees both NYPD and the DOE. So we can attribute some of the reason behind the lack of explicit guidelines for making school safety decisions to mayoral control, touted (at least by mayors) as a panacea for educational problems.

Thanks to Leah Gogel, Insideschools’ Zankel Fellow from Columbia University’s Teachers College, for her help covering the hearing.

Kids who are fidgety and easily distracted aren’t just not paying attention — they are paying attention to something else, according to a teacher at the East Village Community School who has made it her goal to help those kids. A recent New York Times article profiles Roberta Valentine’s efforts to understand what drives daydreamers. Inspired by child pyschologist Mel Levine’s notion of “mind trips,” Valentine has her students write books about what they think about when they daydream, instead of or in addition to referring daydreamers to specialists. By doing this, Valentine helps her kids learn what distracts them and how to seek help to stay on task, writes psychologist Susan Engel in the Times. It’s an interesting approach and one that sounds to me like it would make kids who march to the beat of their own drum feel included, not alienated, in the classroom.

Over at Edwize, the UFT’s blog, Leo Casey describes his trouble trying to find documentation of schools’ graduation rates anywhere on the DOE’s website. I’ve grown so accustomed to finding information on the labyrinthine site that I can forget just how impossible it is to figure out for someone who doesn’t spend most of her time scouring the internet.

Commenters at Edwize note that the DOE’s new website makes data somewhat easier to find, but that schools are unable to update their own information with ease, and that graduation rates, even when available, are notoriously unreliable.