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!

One teacher who hasn’t totally taken the week off is NYC Educator; he’s been blogging away. Today he takes aim at the culture of school as work that led PS 15 in Springfield Gardens to schedule optional 5-hour test prep sessions daily over winter break, as the Daily News reported earlier this week. “As we know … inner-city kids with low standardized test scores are not eligible for vacations or time away from the standardized test prep practice mills,” NYC Educator writes sarcastically. “They must be socialized to expect a future where 9 and 1/2 hour work days, little-to-no vacation time, and weekend work days are the norm. In addition, they must be socialized to expect that much of their compensation will come in the form of ‘performance bonuses’” — in this case, XBox game systems, which were promised to the top scorers on the state test.

NYC Educator thinks that KIPP schools embody this philosophy, and there is an interesting exchange between a KIPP teacher and his critics in the comments. (Of course, we know that KIPP schools, or at least their teachers, have a healthy appetite for fun and games.)

As valid as his critique of the system are, it’s true also that of all the dozen tests kids take each year, the January ELA and March math state tests matter the most for promotion and placement. Even if you’re no fan of high-stakes tests, you’ve got to want to give kids a fair chance to succeed on them as long as they are required, and I’ve always thought it didn’t make too much sense to have such a high-stakes test just five school days after a holiday vacation full of travel, sugar, and video games. If PS 15 cuts the kids some slack after the exam — and for the three kids who bring Xboxes home, it will have to — holding lessons the day after Christmas might be a semi-reasonable thing to do.

Yesterday, I went to Rockefeller Center so you don’t have to. But maybe you should — the Penny Harvest display really is impressive. Equally impressive: overhearing parents tell their kids to “put those coins down!” in dozens of world languages. The display is up through the end of the year.

“Education job titles stump parents,” Erin Einhorn writes in today’s Daily News. Redolent of Insideschools’ attempt to spell out the “ABCs of the DOE’s reorganization” earlier this fall, the article points out that DOE officials have been bestowed with “wacky,” abstract titles such as “chief accountability officer” and “chief equality officer” that don’t make their responsibilities clear.

But in focusing on the titles, Einhorn skirts around an important point. It’s not the fact that there are highly paid education officials whose tasks aren’t immediately apparent that bothers the average parent; there have always been numbers men and strategic planners working behind the scenes at the DOE and other city agencies. It’s that, as one parent points out in the Daily News article, “[the DOE] switched from districts to regions and now they’ve switched back … [Parents] don’t know who is representing what and who is doing what.”

In other words, the situation on the ground for parents is a mess, and parents don’t feel able to get the help that they and their children need. That’s a much bigger problem than an overstuffed nomenclature.

This is a post by sophomore NYC Students blogger Toni Bruno, another member of the NYC Student Union, about Councilman Peter Vallone’s proposed homework cap bill. I’d like to preface her excellent post by saying that at the Dec. 3 NYCSU meeting, the Union decided that some restrictions on homework would be a good thing. I agree with the Union’s decision but I think that a City Council bill is not really the best way to do this. Instead, the goal of a reasonable homework cap might best be accomplished through a mandate that all School Leadership Teams should be charged with creating a homework cap, since they are the body most connected with each school. A cap would definitely be a good thing in my mind because 1) under it, teachers would have to be more selective over the homework they gave (hopefully resulting in less busywork and more meaningful exercises) and 2) it would force principals to create better methods of in-school communication, a problem in many schools. Enjoy!- Seth

A recent Sun article by Grace Rauh reports that Peter Vallone of the New York City Council is proposing a limit on homework. His main motivation seems to be his children who “…are routinely swamped with homework and stuck at home, slogging through it.” Mr. Vallone also says, “As a parent, I have been unable to have fun with my kids. We can’t go for bike rides. We can’t go to the park. We can’t go to the museum, and that’s not fair.” His proposal is for a maximum of 2.5 hours of homework assigned each night, and one night of no homework each week.

As a high school student, I fully appreciate where Mr. Vallone is coming from. I am given almost 4 hours of homework every night and have at least 3 tests a week to study for. I have no doubt that limits need to be set in schools.

Here’s how I would do it. The DOE should consult with parents, teachers and students to decide on the right number of hourse per night, and then set it as a guideline. There would probably be a different number of hours for different grades, rather than 2.5 hours for everyone. Then, the principal of each school should be responsible for coordinating among teachers so that most students have no more than 2.5 hours of homework per night. That means each teacher would probably be given a limit, but the limit could be adjusted at times when other teachers are giving less.

At the high school level, students who take a lot of honors or AP classes would have to accept that their workload could exceed the 2.5 hour per night guideline. It’s true that homework loads are taking away from other important activities in students’ lives. More homework means less time for exercise, music, family, friends, etc. But at the high school level, this is a choice that some families might want to make, on the basis of interests and ambitions.

I have attended public school in New York since kindergarten, and I agree with Mr. Vallone. Restrictions on homework time should be put in place by the DOE, and implemented by school principals.

Cross-posted at NYC Students

Nestled in a Times article yesterday about the pedagogical values of graphic novels was the information that fans of the genre tried to start a comics-themed high school but were not approved by the DOE. I’m not sure if I feel better to know that there is some limit as to what school themes are approved, or worse knowing that the DOE thinks wildlife management and fire safety are more likely than comic books to get kids excited about learning.

The Comic Book Project is a national program run out of Teachers College that aims to trick kids into developing literacy skills by reading and writing comic books. Since starting in a Queens elementary school eight years ago, the project has expanded to almost 900 schools nationwide, according to the Times. Check out some comic books by New York City kids at the Comic Book Project’s gallery.

And if you’re looking for something to do this holiday week, go see “Persepolis.” It’s based on Marjane Satrapi’s excellent graphic novel series about growing up in Iran.

Yesterday’s Times article about a charter school in Georgia that enrolls many immigrant students, including several refugees, highlights how having diverse schools benefits all students. If you really want to see why diversity matters, check out the accompanying video, which profiles two adorable boys — one a native American, the other Burmese — who have become fast friends.

In New York City, there are more than 20 high schools for new immigrants, usually those who have arrived within the last four years. (Search for them.) I’ve always enjoyed visiting these schools because the students, like those profiled in the Times video, are pleased to be in school and are excited to help each other learn.

Although the city’s schoolchildren aren’t heading back to their classrooms for another week, I’m back to work. I’m thinking there won’t be too much school-related news until 2008 — even the DOE wouldn’t roll out a new initiative between Christmas and New Year’s, right? — so for the next few days I’m planning to post about interesting articles and ideas that I just didn’t get to this fall.

First up: a recent article in the student newspaper of Stony Brook University about the state of high school science education in New York City. A Stony Brook researcher has been examining what kinds of science courses the city’s high schools offer; she found that more than half of high schools did not offer physics during the 2004-2005 school year (I would imagine that the percentage has gone down, given the proliferation since that time of small schools). The researcher also found that a lack of advanced science courses correlates with students’ socioeconomic status. Schools with higher proportions of poor and minority students are less likely to offer advanced science courses. On the one hand, this seems intuitive: we know that poor and minority students are more likely to receive inadequate math and science instruction before high school, making them ill prepared to take physics.

But reading articles like this one reminds me that the “soft bigotry of low expectations” is alive and well. An assistant principal at Townsend Harris, which has many advanced science courses, is quoted in the article as saying, “For many of the kids in other schools their goal isn’t physics. It’s to be able to count their change so they aren’t ripped off when they buy food or to be able to read their prescription so they can take care of themselves when they’re sick.” Those may be the horizons that poor students can see, but their teachers can see farther. Obviously, someone who can’t count change can’t pass the physics Regents exam — but shouldn’t that be the goal? Simply getting a kid ready to deal with the daily math he’ll face in the work world or in the first year of a basic college program is a major accomplishment in many places — but doesn’t that still sell the kid short?

The state has released its own list of elementary and middle schools in good standing and in need of improvement under No Child Left Behind — and the news isn’t great for the city or its progress reports.

The state removed 18 city elementary and middle schools from the list but added 64, bringing the total number of city schools not in good standing to 318. Many schools that received D’s and F’s on their progress reports are considered in good standing with the state, including at least two of the schools that the DOE has announced it will close this year. And many other schools that received A’s and B’s made the state’s list of failing schools.

City education officials say there is “correlation” between the two lists because as a school’s progress report score gets higher, it is more likely to be considered in good standing by the state. Still, the discrepancy between the two lists makes sense; after all, the two accountability systems focus on different things. No Child Left Behind looks only at the percentage of students scoring at proficiency each year, while the progress reports look at individual student improvement over the course of each year. The higher number of failing schools this year on the state’s list could have to do with more students being tested, as the Post suggests, or on the fact that the state’s requirements are getting stricter each year as we get closer to 2014, when No Child Left Behind expects every child to be proficient on state tests.

The DOE proudly announced earlier this week that 86 percent of the schools given the option of accepting performance pay this year chose to. Thirty-four eligible schools chose not to participate. (The percentage would have been slightly lower had the DOE not included the additional schools it apparently solicited once it became clear that a chunk of schools would abstain from the program.)

By the end of the day tomorrow, each of the schools will have to decide, by committee, whether their merit pay will be shared equally among all teachers or given in varying amounts to teachers who especially deserve it. I’m curious whether any schools will choose this latter option, and if they do, whether their choice will reflect an honest attempt to see the effect of merit pay or cronyism, as Norm Scott at EdNotes Online speculates will happen.

Interestingly, a slightly higher percentage of “A” and “D” schools than “B” and “C” schools given the option to participate chose not to. But of the 19 schools with F’s on their progress reports, not a single one opted out of the performance pay pilot. I’m not sure what, if anything, to make of this — I’m open to suggestions.

In other incentives news, we also learned this week that the city has distributed $740,000 so far through the Opportunity NYC program, although we don’t know how much money was distributed because of kids’ achievements in school.

When the progress reports first came out, many, including Regent Merryl Tisch, were not happy that charter schools did not get grades. Chancellor Klein said he didn’t have the authority or the data to issue grades for charter schools. But now the city has issued grades for more than a dozen of the schools it chartered, and the results are, unsurprisingly, favorable to the charters. Of the charter grades, 79 percent were A’s and B’s (compared with 62 percent of other schools), and only one school, Peninsula Preparatory Academy in Queens, received an F. KIPP Academy was among the five schools with A’s — guess the staff retreat in the Carribbean paid off!

The charter progress reports are shorter than those for regular public schools, and “environment” is measured solely by attendance. Because of this, the reports clearly note that “it would be inaccurate to make a direct comparison to the grades assigned to non-charter DOE public schools” — but that hasn’t stopped the press. The Sun proclaims, “Charter Schools Win Top Grades: Surpass Traditional Public Schools on Progress Reports,” and notes that two city-chartered schools had higher numerical grades than any other schools in the city.

For equity’s sake, I’m glad the charters are getting grades, but in reality, how much will they matter to the hundreds of families waiting for spaces to open up in charter schools that are often more disciplined and academically oriented than neighborhood schools? The charter schools’ strong showing does little to dispel the notion that lots of test prep will equal a high grade in the city’s accountability system. As Julie Trott, head of Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School, which got one of the two highest grades in the city, told the Sun, “We just basically are super, super serious about academics and don’t play at all.” Parents don’t need a grade to tell them whether that’s an environment they want for their child.

Still, given how little information is available about charter schools that isn’t generated by the schools themselves, charter school reports strike me as more useful than those for regular public schools. We’ll soon have more information; according to the Sun, the state has agreed to have all charter schools receive grades next year.

The DOE has just announced “new measures to improve transparency and detail in class size reporting.” Using improved means of data collection, the DOE will start publishing class size reports so parents can know on a grade-by-grade, school-by-school level how large classes are. Now that sounds like the kind of report parents might actually trust when deciding where to send their kids. Of course, they’ll have to wade through an Excel file with more than 16,000 entries to get the information they want.

Nowhere in the press release is there any indication that the DOE has intentions of reducing class sizes beyond what principals choose to do on their own, with the help of the DOE’s “targeted class size reduction coaching program.” But perhaps the improved transparency is a concession by the DOE that parents think class size is important? That would be a major shift from earlier this year, when the DOE worked hard to downplay parents’ calls for smaller class sizes in the Learning Environment Surveys.

Anyone who thinks the New York Times has been soft on the DOE in recent years should take note: Sam Freedman is on the job. His column today addresses the question of “How a Middle School Can Be ‘Dangerous’ and Still Get an A.” Freedman takes a look at South Bronx Academy for Applied Media, which got an A on its progress report but also holds a slot on the state’s list of “persistently dangerous” schools.

Former teachers describe a place where they spent more time putting out fires and deflecting profanities aimed at them than teaching. It’s true that teachers who have left a school may have competing reasons for wanting to go to the press with their complaints — but the school’s Learning Environment Survey bears out their assertion that the school isn’t safe. Principal Roshone Ault said the school got its “persistently dangerous” designation because she reports every incident, but teachers said they were dissuaded from reporting some incidents. (Ault, formerly a teacher at a charter school that was closed due to poor performance, was the subject of a Times article last year about the new wave of young principals.)

At South Bronx Academy, which opened in 2005, 13 of 16 teachers were brand new last year, and Freedman said half of teachers fled the school in the last year. The progress reports don’t take teacher retention into account. James Liebman told the Times that “many teachers flee schools that are in the midst of reform and instilling a ‘culture of accountability,’” though how a new school can be in the midst of reform is not clear. What is clear is that in the bizarro world of DOE-2K7, teacher attrition, widely understood to seriously inhibit school success, is actually a good thing.

Freedman doesn’t contest the fact that the progress reports adequately measure what they’re designed to measure — year-to-year improvement, especially among the most needy students. But his column points out, as many others have, that the progress reports don’t measure many of the factors that teachers, parents, and students think are most important.

For a thorough and thoughtful rundown of the issues surrounding the progress reports, check out a new article in City Limits Weekly by regular Insideschools contributor Helen Zelon. Using the City Council hearing on the progress reports as a starting point, Zelon takes a look at how parents use the grades, the relationship between the grades and school closures, and the role of parents in the DOE’s reforms generally. (Here’s a hint: it’s not meaningful.)

Add a laundromat in Flatbush to the list of places where the Office of Accountability held “consultations” when finessing the progress report plan. The Sun today reports that DOE officials promoted the reports and the Learning Environment Surveys at laundromats and dentists’ offices after thinking “Where are people going to be?”

It sounds like the DOE just strolled in and started chatting up customers without any warning to the businesses. If Wash and Read owner Harriet Williams had known DOE officials were coming to her laundromat, she probably would have tried to be there — she told the Sun “several of her questions about her daughters’ education have not been answered over the years,” including why her application to transfer one child from a failing middle school was denied.

Anyone who expects to come away from a New York City public middle school tour with a “THIS IS THE PLACE FOR MY KID” feeling should adjust expectations. I’m told this does happen to some parents – and to some kids – who feel instantly comfortable after brief visits.

It just has not been our experience so far. Instead, we climb a ton of stairs, strain to hear our tour guide, lose our tour guide and get separated. I scan walls furiously, gauging artwork, writing and projects at a glance. We enter classrooms ever-so-briefly; never long enough to understand the purpose of a lesson.After every middle school tour, I get a headache and my 5th-grade son complains that the school – no matter how small – is way too big.

“I didn’t like it,’ he says, as I root around in my pocketbook for a Tylenol. “There are too many people.’’

I try to explain that the “people’’ he objects to are hundreds of parents and kids, who show up for the tour armed with questions – usually about getting in. The reason for that is simple – there aren’t enough good public middle schools in New York City, and the best get way more applicants than they can take.

So naturally, tours segue into a barrage of test score and high school queries. Then come the detailed, lengthy scenario questions unique to a child’s individual issues. Mercifully, most principals recognize they probably shouldn’t be addressed in a packed auditorium or hallway and get the tours moving.

The kids ask about sports and clubs. And always, they want to know if they can go out to lunch.
My son looked so unhappy after his last tour that I wondered what he really learns from all these visits. He insisted he really likes seeing the buildings and hearing from “the kid tour guides.

I’m not blaming educators and parent coordinators for the crowds and chaos. Tours are an added pressure at a time when schools are being judged and evaluated by test scores and student improvement. Their first responsibility has to be to educate the kids already there.

My advice, based on about a dozen tours over two years? Don’t judge a school by the tour alone. Find a way to get back into the building for a different event. Talk to kids, parents and any of the educators who will give you the time in less pressured circumstances.

Call the schools you may be interested in and find out if there is a talent show, performance, PTA event or potluck supper where you might meet staff, parents and kids. Some districts are holding middle school fairs this winter where you can also meet kids and staffers in less pressured circumstances.

That’s what we did last week. We attended a talent show at a school with a disappointing tour, but one we know is terrific nonetheless. My son met teachers and the principals, saw the kids in action and had a great time. He came home smiling and optimistic for the first time in weeks. This extra step may feel like a headache but it will save you a much bigger one later on.

By Seth Pearce

As I promised last week, here are the points that New York City Student Union members made when we met with James Liebman to discuss the progress reports.

1) The NYC Student Union supports the progress report program because it adds a sense of accountability and transparency to our schools and gives principals and SLTs important information about how to improve their schools.2) We believe that students should be involved in revising the surveys to make them more student friendly and informative. In addition, we believe that like the parent survey, the student survey should include a question like “What is the most important thing that could be improved about your school?” We also thought that surveys of teachers, parents and students should carry more weight in the overall school grade.

3) We believe that the Student Progress section should be reduced to at most 50 percent of the grade and more weight should be given to the Learning Environment section.

4) We believe that the weighted Regents pass rate does not say as much about the output of the school as the survey-makers desire and that it should be reduced or eliminated in favor of a larger emphasis on credit accumulation and graduation rates as both of those use Regents scores to determine real student output. It also puts too much emphasis on test prep by giving schools points for trying to make students take Regents earlier.

5) We believe that attendance, though it is a somewhat troublesome factor, should be given more weight because it forces schools to reexamine policies on a day-to-day level and create more incentives for students to come to school. Shanna Kofman, a Staten Island NYCSU representative, pointed out that at Staten Island Tech, the school offers SAT tutoring the day before SAT exams so that students won’t stay home to study. This is an important example; this occurs only several times a year but the school cares enough to adapt to the students in order to keep them in class for those few days.

6) Finally, we suggest that a student or students should be included in the evaluation of data collected from surveys and quality reviews, so that the effect of positive and negative aspects of every school can affect the school’s report card grade in a way that accurately reflects the way those aspects affect students. Because schools are made up of people of diverse educational perspectives, the teams that evaluate schools must reflect this diversity, and therefore must include students.

The edu-activist community has, to this point, missed out on a great opportunity to revise this system and make it into a more positive factor in our schools. Instead, they have for a large part condemned the program outright, severing a possible avenue of communication between the various constituents of our school system.

I hope that the education community can eventually use this issue to give parents, teachers, and students more influence on the results-based system that seems soon to overtake American education (i.e. keeping the general program but working to decrease the importance of certain elements like high-stakes testing). By refusing to compromise on this we are decreasing the possibility of working together on the more important issues like class size. In this city, compromise matters.

I’ve been meaning to note for the last week an interesting article in the Times about CUNY’s Model City Council program. Kids from around the city, drawn from those enrolled in College Now courses, learn about city governance, represent their districts, and debate the same issues as the real City Council. Recently, the model council voted on the cell phone bill that generated so much friction between the council and Mayor Bloomberg this past summer. But unlike the real council, which voted almost unanimously to give students the right to carry phones to and from schools, the model council was divided, passing the bill by only one vote. Was this a case of kids adopting an exaggeratedly adult mindset, or do many students actually think there’s merit to the cell phone ban? I’d love to know.

Just what we need — another school grading system! The Sun reports today that the state has developed a “growth model” method of evaluating schools that, like the progress reports, depends heavily on year-to-year improvement in student performance.

The new reports, already under development, will go online just as soon as Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings approves it. It will be interesting to see whether the state’s reports will have the same flaws as the city’s progress reports, or whether state education officials will learn from the brouhaha over the progress reports and improve upon the city’s model.

Think you know everything there is to know about the progress reports? Take Columbia University’s Teachers College quiz to find out for sure.

Celia Oyler, the professor who wrote the quiz, doesn’t try to hide her disdain for the reports. Here’s the extra credit question:

Since these school grades are: so expensive to produce; not based on many important aspects of what many educators and parents consider central aspects of schooling; do not take into account multiple measures of student progress and school quality; do not take into account standard statistical measures of error; and are based predominantly (in elementary and middle schools) on state tests not designed to be used to make year-to-year comparisons of student growth, why are these school grades being used by the Bloomberg/Klein administration?

Two news stories today about grading improprieties remind us of the unintended consequences of placing high stakes on tests and scores.

At Central Park East High School, Principal Bennett Lieberman is under fire for a memo he sent to his staff calling for teachers to hand out higher grades, telling them, “If you are not passing more than 65% of your students in a class, then you are not designing your expectations to meet their abilities.” Teachers and students are upset, and Deborah Meier, a founder of the school who now works as an education professor and activist, hypothesized in the Daily News that Lieberman’s memo was a response to the progress reports, which give credit to high schools based on how many classes students pass.

Also, Yoav Gonen reports in the Post on the investigation of a cheating scandal at Wagner High School on Staten Island, where an assistant principal engineered an attempt to artificially raise students’ scores on June 2006 Regents exams. The report of investigators recommends that the assistant principal, who is now an AP at MS 88 in Brooklyn, be fired, but Wagner Principal Gary Giordano, now the AP’s husband, will go almost entirely unscathed. The Post bills the story as an exclusive, but the most recent edition of New York Teacher, the UFT’s newspaper, has more details about the testing improprieties, as well as other allegations of wrongdoing against Giordano.

There have always been corrupt administrators, but as pressure to improve performance ratchets up even more, I think we can assume we will see more incidents like these.

A few days ago, walking to the train after an NYC Student Union meeting with some of my fellow students, it struck me to ask, Why has the debate on the NYC DOE’s progress report program garnered so much attention? Why have so many newspaper articles been written on it, so many people been riled up about it? It’s just a silly report card program, right? Aren’t there so many important issues out there?

Well, yes and no.

While there are more urgent issues facing our schools, especially class size, this issue gains its importance because it very thoroughly defines the main theme of Klein/Bloomberg’s tenure running our schools: The Search for Results. Under this administration and probably in many other school systems around the country, the focus of broad educational policy is measurable results. These results set the agenda for individual schools and school systems as a whole.

Hopefully, all of us witnessing and participating in this event can use what has transpired in New York as a learning experience on the short-term future of American education politics. Since the first school Progress Reports were released, many education advocacy groups have viciously attacked the DOE, alleging that the reports are a waste of money and encourage a culture of constant test prep.

Many of these attacks have been directed at DOE accountability czar James Liebman. I personally feel that these were uncalled for. The man is trying to create a system that brings a measure of accountability, transparency and, most important, attention to our schools. In that third category, Liebman has unquestionably succeeded.

The progress report debate has brought education issues into the public eye more than any other issue this year. It has stayed in the paper and on the minds of parents, politicians and plain old people. It has inspired questions to be asked and answers to given and has gotten more people thinking about their schools. Without the letter grade, bold and big in the top left hand corner of the progress report (the main qualm for some anti-report card activists), this would have been a non-story and no change would have come of it.

If there’s one thing I would like to put out there before the debate begins to die down it is this: The report cards are not inherently evil. They are flawed, but their spirit is important and good. For my school’s SLT at least, our Progress Report has given us important information about what can be improved in our schools and has forced us to develop strategies to deal with the areas in which we did not do as well. Hopefully, the progress reports also got more parents informed about what’s going on in their children’s schools and inspired them to take some action.

As I said, however, the report cards are flawed. Last week several reps from NYCSU went to meet with Mr. Liebman to explain our grievances about the current progress reports. In my next post, I will describe them.

Cross-posted on the NYC Students Blog

This past spring, when the state lifted the cap on the number of allowed charter schools, you could hear prospective school operators salivating. Now some of the first charters have been granted under the new cap.

Eight schools chartered by SUNY will open in the fall; all are part of existing networks of charter schools. There will be a new Achievement First school in Brownsville, a Carl C. Icahn school in Far Rockaway, an Uncommon Schools middle school in Brooklyn, and three replicas of the Harlem Success Academy Charter School in Manhattan. That represents a 300 percent expansion of Eva Moskowitz’s charter school, which opened in 2006. And of course the UFT-endorsed Green Dot charter high school, based on the model out of Los Angeles, will open somewhere in the Bronx.

And while I can’t find evidence that the DOE has actually granted charters yet for next year, this summer it did invite a number of schools to submit full charter applications for the fall of 2008, and at least a few of those are now hiring. It looks like the DOE is more comfortable with home-grown charters than the state; many of the proposals it requested came from individuals or community-based organizations.

Teachers, administrators, and students at Canarsie High School got the news they feared earlier this week: the Department of Education will phase Canarsie out because of its consistently poor performance. It won’t accept any new 9th graders in the fall of 2008, and the last seniors will graduate in 2011. Presumably, new small schools will open in the Canarsie building.

With the school scoring an “F” on its progress report and an “undeveloped” rating on its Quality Review, its demise seemed inevitable. But a teacher told the Daily News that news of the closing “came as a shock to everyone,” and a Daily News article last week described the school’s attempts to stop its doors from closing. Administrators planned to ramp up the level of academic work and tighten security this spring, saying, “We won’t go down without a fight.” Teachers told the Daily News that they think Principal Tyona Washington is receptive to change — but she’s also experienced in ushering troubled schools to their deaths; after graduating from the Leadership Academy, she was principal of IS 390 in Brooklyn for its final year.

There are only two more nights, but you should still know that this week the DOE is holding presentations about the new Gifted & Talented admissions policy in the seven languages for which the DOE provides translation services. Tomorrow there will be presentations in Haitian Creole, Bengali, and Russian; on Thursday, Bengali and Spanish. Share this news with your school and families who might want to attend the forums, and see the Insideschools calendar for details about locations.

Unfortunately, the Arabic and Chinese presentations were tonight, as was the single presentation in the Bronx, but families should be able to get their questions answered in their own language by calling their District Family Advocate.

Advocates for Children, Insideschools’ parent organization, has just released a report about the status of overage, under-credited kids — of which there are about 138,000 — in the reorganized DOE. The policy brief, “Dead Ends: The Need for More Pathways to Graduation for Overage Under-Credited Students in New York City,” says that despite the creation of the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation, which incubates programs to serve older students, and the addition of new transfer schools in District 79, many older students are still without options. In particular, many of the new transfer schools require students to be able to graduate in two years or to have a certain number of credits before enrolling; young adults who never accumulated any credits are shut out of these programs.

AFC’s report also discusses the ability of the DOE’s programs to meet the special needs of English language learners, students in special education, and pregnant and parenting teens, whose special programs were closed this year. AFC found that more than half of Young Adult Borough Centers don’t offer adequate services for at least one of those needy groups.

This may be the worst time of year for New Yorkers to stop by Rockefeller Center, but the million dollars in pennies that the city’s schoolchildren raised this fall looks like it’s worth the hassle. Penny Harvest has been going on for 16 years, but this year Common Cents, the organization that runs it, commissioned a “field” to showcase all of the pennies and raise awareness about the program. I think it’s working — at least partially — because last night a friend in Chicago called me to ask what was the deal was with the giant pile of pennies next to the Christmas tree.

At each school, students work together to decide where to donate their pennies. As Jennifer Freeman pointed out last week, the experience of giving at school can be a great way to teach kids about thoughtful, deliberate philanthropy — and to make the point in a visually powerful way that every little bit counts when it comes to helping others.

“Did you get anything back?’’I posed this question to my 7th-grade son the other day. I hated the nagging tone of my voice. I’m sure he did too. After all, I’m constantly asking how he did on the math test, the science project, the Spanish quiz.

Wouldn’t it be better if I asked, “Did you learn anything interesting today?’’

Why do I care so much? Because 7th grade counts for high school admission, and the grades you get do have an impact. After that, grades affect what college you get into.

It’s an endless cycle of evaluation. And last month, some staff members at Institute for Collaborative Education, a well respected middle and high school in Manhattan, decided to offer a way out.

After a staff meeting where teachers spent “about two straight hours contemplating and debating about grades,’’ 6th grade parents received a letter offering a chance to “opt-out’’ of receiving letter grades — while still receiving detailed narratives at the end of each cycle, along with time to conference with the teachers.

“To us, the goal of education is to foster a sense of curiosity in the students, to encourage them to explore the world around and try to find ways to make it better,’’ the memo said. “Too many times, education boils down to competition for the best letter grade. And this should not be what education is all about.’’

An interesting take at a time when schools in the city are being awarded controversial letter grades, a concept I totally disagree with.

It’s different, though, when it comes to your own kid. I broached the idea of no grades with my 7th grader, who does not go to ICE but wished he did the minute I told him about the “opt-out” plan.

Possibly, he just liked the idea of not hearing my voice at the end of the day: “Did you get anything back? What did you get?’’

I can’t say I blame him, although I’m still conflicted here. As I search for a middle school for my 5th grade son, I love the idea of telling him that grades – and test scores – really don’t matter, as long as he is trying his hardest and doing his best.

Except it wouldn’t really be true, would it?

After yesterday’s excitement, I’m ready to take a more substantive look at the content of the City Council hearing on the progress reports. Jenny Medina at the Times has the best rundown of all of the papers and for an overview of what James Liebman said and how the Council members responded, I would go to her report.

What stood out most to me was that once again the DOE managed to present a compelling initiative in a way that frustrated and angered elected officials and parents. A numbers-oriented friend of mine who shares my interest in education has told me that the progress reports are sound from her vantage point, and from mine, nothing I heard yesterday dissuaded me from thinking that they contain useful information parents ought to be able to find out. Liebman’s presentation also helped me understand just how some top schools got low grades by showing how their students’ progress, particularly that of their students who began the year in the lowest third, stacked up unfavorably next to other schools with similar students.

So I don’t understand why Liebman had to undermine his own hard work by arguing that the grades are not based almost entirely on single assessments in math and English; saying that his office had “consulted” with, among many others, an organization whose leader was in the room and later testified that their only conversation was not about the progress reports; and by giving Time Out From Testing the runaround on his way out the door.

I was also relieved to see that in disliking the progress reports, Insideschools readers are more like typical New Yorkers than the Quinnipiac poll would have us think; Council member after Council member commented that their constituents have told them that poor grades are unfairly stigmatizing some good schools, some of which fear that their recent progress could be undercut. Liebman did say, as he has before, that he is open to tweaking the formula used to calculate the grades or even assigning schools multiple grades based on different criteria. But in my view, it’s the presentation and the attitude behind it, not the formula, that need a major revision.

*Title updated to reflect an exchange in the comments about the statistical validity of the reports.

Wow. Folks here are pretty blown away by what just happened. After the council members finished grilling James Liebman (this took about 3 hours), Education Committee Chair Robert Jackson announced that the parents from Time Out From Testing were set up in the City Hall rotunda to present their petitions to Liebman.

But as they waited, Liebman left out of the Council Chambers’ side door. The parents — and the many reporters and photographers — scurried to meet him downstairs, on the other side of the building. But security officers and DOE aides pushed the parents back at every turn; it looked like only Time Out From Testing leader Jane Hirschmann made it through the gates to the doors of Tweed, where she too was turned back.

Liebman said many interesting things at the hearing, for sure, many of which could help make parents feel more comfortable with the progress reports and Liebman’s accountability program in general. But I can’t remember much of what he said. All I can think about is watching him try desperately to avoid involved parents who care very much about what’s happening in their children’s and their city’s schools, just because he disagrees with them.

Time Out from Testing members tell me they collected about 7,00o petitions from schools in every borough and with every possible grade. Now those petitions are sitting in boxes in the hall.

I’m at the City Council hearing right now, and so are a couple dozen representatives of Time Out From Testing, all holding up signs emblazoned with bold F’s. James Liebman has just settled in for his presentation, the first, which he says will take about 25 minutes. Will his voice or Time Out From Testing’s folks’ arms hold out longer?

There’s plenty to do this week if you’re concerned about the progress report grades that were recently released. (And if you have anything to do with the 13 schools the DOE has already said it will close because of poor grades, you’re probably concerned.)

First, this morning the City Council’s Education Committee is holding a hearing on the progress report grades. 9:30 a.m., City Hall. Map.

Then, tomorrow Central Park East I and II elementary schools are hosting a forum, featuring Deborah Meier and others, about the grades. Tuesday, 6-8 p.m., CPE I, Manhattan. Map.

And if that’s not enough, you can also sign Class Size Matters’ online petition against the report cards. Class Size Matters says the millions of dollars that are going into the progress reports would be better used lowering class size and building new schools.

I’ll find out the answer to this question tomorrow morning when I see how many people are at the City Council hearing, but I’m curious: Are folks still at your school still as worried about the report cards as people were two weeks ago, when most Insideschools readers gave the initiative a “D” or an “F” in our poll? Or have people moved on?

Looks like the state was wise to reject abstinence-only sex education funds. Teen birth rates have just gone up for the first time in decades, at a time when more money than ever has been sunk into abstinence-only programs. Most researchers think the rising teen pregnancy rate relates to the misinformation about safe sex practices that abstinence-only programs promulgate. Fans of abstinence-only sex ed call those claims “stupid,” saying instead that young women who become pregnant understand contraception but want babies. If schools choose to adopt the sex ed program the DOE is now recommending — which includes real information about contraception — New York City could be a leader in reversing the disturbing trend.

(Though upsetting, this news does get me excited to see “Juno” this weekend. See you Monday!)

For the first time ever, the state is going to reimburse the Department of Education for the costs of educating children who enroll after the end of October. So the DOE is spreading the word that kids who turn 4 before Dec. 31 can still enroll in Pre-K programs that have space. According to the DOE’s guide, both full-day and half-day programs in schools in nearly every district “may have space.” Call to inquire — you could get lucky!

Other than Alexander Russo, am I the only one who isn’t totally repulsed by the Carribbean vacations that KIPP Academy Charter School staff members took in the last two years? The papers, the state comptroller, and bloggers are up in arms about the $70,000 spent on trips of only moderate educational benefit, and KIPP says it is putting into place tighter internal controls to prevent similar uses of funds in the future. But if, as the school claims, the funds really came from private sources, not the state, is it so bad that KIPP holds some of its professional development on the beach?

KIPP teachers work long hours (often 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.), teach on weekends, and give out their cell phone numbers to their kids. Their hard work seems to pay off for their students (although some dispute the evenness of the field they’re playing on). As KIPP founder Dave Levin, who attended the retreats, told the Post, creative rewards are required to keep teachers motivated. A system that struggles with teacher retention should appreciate Levin’s attitude, if not the particular reward KIPP offers.

When teachers leave the profession after only one or two years, it’s destabilizing for schools and expensive for the system. But when they, like career-changing Teaching Fellow Robert Pondiscio or Bronx blogging teacher Ms. Frizzle, hit a wall or begin “teaching on the ledge” after half a dozen years, schools lose their most valuable teachers. The public wants its teachers to be highly educated, hardworking, and constantly improving. If there’s no cost to the kids, why not spend a few bucks to keep teachers happy?

Next Thursday my child will play the trumpet in his winter holiday concert. After the music and singing, the class will gather for cider and cheese and crackers, to share a time together and give the teacher a little token of appreciation. The mom who arranged the gathering also asked parents to bring donations of food, if possible, for the nearby Yorkville Common Pantry, where, as in all food pantries in the country these days, food shortages threaten.

‘Tis the season for kids to experience the joy of giving. For much of the year we put on fundraisers to supplement our kids’ classroom and programming needs, but at this season we can bring a sense of holiday spirit to school by reaching out to others. Whether it’s a bake sale to benefit the Heifer Project, which provides live animals to supplement the livelihoods of families around the world, or food for a local food pantry, or a spare change collection for a local charity, school kids can learn from working together on a benefit that lets them reach out and give to others, bringing a real sense of meaning to the holiday season.

I haven’t been blogging about the Khalil Gibran saga because it’s just so far removed from the school at this point. But now that a judge has ruled that the DOE did not violate former principal Debbie Almontaser’s right to free speech when it fired her after she made controversial comments in a Post interview, the DOE is one step closer to being able to name the person who will replace Interim Acting Principal Danielle Salzberg. According to the Post, the DOE is ready to name the new principal but is holding off while Almontaser appeals the judge’s decision. It’s about time. The mime with the law degree and the T.S. Eliot scholar from Egypt who are teaching KGIA’s 6th graders need strong leadership.

The DOE has announced the closing of two more schools: Far Rockaway High School in Queens and PS 220 in the Bronx. PS 220 will close at the end of the school year; it will reopen next year with a new name and new leadership. Far Rockaway will phase out and graduate its last students in 2011.

Those students will not, however, include the more than 50 kids who were transferred earlier this year to Beach Channel High School, where many of them disrupted the school’s tenuous stability. Enrollment is down, fights are up, and more safety agents have been installed at Beach Channel. I’d say Beach Channel is on the chopping block, but then where will Far Rockaway kids go, now that their zoned school will cease to exist?

Update 12/7: Andy Jacob of the DOE writes: “You should know that those students [Sam Freedman] mentioned weren’t actually transfers from Far Rockaway - they were students who are zoned for Far Rockaway but were placed in Beach Channel during the OTC process. The whole thing is a red herring, since (1) plenty of students zoned for Beach Channel were placed in Far Rockaway, (2) if you look at students who actually transferred from one school to the other, more went from Beach Channel to Far Rockaway than vice versa, and (3) as I’m sure you know, which high school a student is zoned for really doesn’t matter unless they actually want to attend that school (maybe a student zoned for Far Rock is interested in Beach Channel’s unique oceanography program, for example). And it’s worth noting, too, that Beach Channel’s enrollment is several hundred students under their register projection this year, whereas Far Rockaway is a bit over theirs. Beach Channel has available seats, which is the biggest factor in determining OTC placements.”

At least New York City isn’t rewarding kids for good grades with fast food, like one school district in Florida does. Not yet, anyway.

Now online at Insideschools: More details about the Gifted & Talented handbook rollout; a Gotham Gazette piece analyzing the backlash to the progress reports; information about scholarships from our college counselor; and Judy’s advice about holiday gift-giving. Enjoy and, as always, let us know what you think!

The Times reported this week that fighting in city schools dropped by 20 percent between 2003 and 2005. But dating-related violence is on the rise among NYC teens, with 10 percent of girls and 5 percent of boys reporting being raped or forced into sex by a partner.

The report underscores the reality that while the school system may make kids feel like criminals, New York City teens face real dangers. Last week, a teenager was stabbed to death in a botched robbery across the street from Murrow High School in Brooklyn, although it’s still not clear whether the teenagers involved had an affiliation with the school. And as part of the Post’s article on dating violence, one Washington Irving High School 9th grader reported that she carries a box cutter to school to avoid problems.

I wonder whether schools’ focus on policing prevents them from teaching students how to make healthy choices for themselves and their partners. If so, a short term drop in fighting might belie longer-term dangers for the city’s young women and men.

A tipster tells me that desperate parents, unable to believe that the DOE would provide useful resources, are shelling out $45 to buy an OLSAT test prep kit from a “Ph.D. testing specialist” who hawks her wares online. The sample OLSAT questions look pretty much identical to those in the G&T handbooks released this week. It’s unclear whether Robin McFarlane set up shop before this year or whether she’s taking advantage of New York City parents’ nerves, but either way she must be thrilled that the OLSAT is the DOE’s test of choice.

The ax has fallen for half a dozen of the 14-20 schools that will be closed at the end of this year. Yesterday the DOE announced that six schools — the Tito Puente Education Complex (or IS 117) in East Harlem; EBC/East New York High School for Public Safety and Law in Brooklyn; the Business School for Entrepreneurship (or IS 216) in the Bronx; PS 79 in the Bronx; PS 101 in East Harlem; and the Academy of Environmental Science High School in East Harlem — will either close or begin the process of phasing out after this school year.

Various news reports peg parents and kids as feeling sad but not surprised. All of the schools received D’s or F’s on their progress reports; many have had a revolving door of principals; and a few refused to let Insideschools visit. Kids at these schools do deserve better. But IS 216 was created to replace a failing middle school only five years ago. How can we be sure that the same problems won’t claim IS 216’s replacement five years from now?

As of this year my younger brother is no longer a public school student. Like me, he attended public elementary and middle schools, however, when it came to choose a high school, he and my parents decided that he would do better at a private school. Fortunately, they made a good decision for my brother. He is now at a school that he loves, he really succeeds in and he feels does a good job in educating the students.

Out of curiosity, I asked him what the difference was between the public school he had attended and his current school in terms of educational value. His answer was quick and simple: the adults in the building have time to care about the students.

In the NYC education system, the first step to improving schools is creating a situation in which educators have time to care about the students. This can only come for significant reductions in class size and teacher load.

One problem with my brother’s public school experience, he said, was the feeling that whenever he approached a teacher for extra help or just general academic support, he felt as though he was burdening them, like they didn’t have the time to help their student. This is a major problem and it is not the teachers’ fault.

Through my high school experience so far, I can count on one hand how many of my classes were below the union cap of 34 (even though the City claims the average is 25). As a member of the NYC Student Union, I know students from every corner of the city, and over and over I have heard the same sentiment when it comes to class size. Just as problematic is the problem of teacher load, the total number of students a teacher teaches at any given time. This number is often around 170 in high schools.

Education is based on relationships, the most basic and important being that between a teacher and a student. Large class sizes and teacher loads, prevents many teachers and students from developing the relationships necessary to make education happen. Furthermore, while classes of 34 are extremely difficult to manage and teach effectively in, it should be noted that they are equally difficult to learn in. When I entered ninth grade, when confronted with larger classes, I came to an academic standstill. I tried to do the work and do well on tests, but inside I knew that I was just not learning as effectively as I had in previous schools.

Because these factors make teaching and learning just so impossible, they also prevent the clear evaluation of new academic strategies, as even the best programs are doomed to fail under these conditions. Thus, as the title reads, class size and teacher load reduction is the requisite first step to saving our schools.

What we need in New York City, is an education system that makes education possible. When educators are so overburdened that they don’t have time to care about the needs of individual students, this is not the case. When the classroom is completely unmanageable and knowledge can not pass through the barrier between teacher and student because of population overload, this is not the case. And when students feel as though they are just another “problem” for the all-to-busy adults in the building, this is not the case.

It is time to cut class sizes and trim teacher loads. If we really want to save our schools, that is the first step.

Cross-posted at NYC Students Blog

It’s December 3 — time for the frenzy over G&T admissions to ratchet up a notch! Today the DOE released handbooks outlining the updated regulations and containing the Request for Testing form, as well as the hotly anticipated sample BSRA exams.

The basic handbook is online, but to get the test prep materials, you’ll need to pick up the particular handbook that applies to your kid’s age. To parents’ annoyance, those handbooks weren’t available today at the Manhattan Borough Enrollment Center on Seventh Avenue, but parents on the Upper West Side were able to pick them up at the District 3 office. Where else are they available?

And you will definitely need the handbook, because after the Daily News let people know that pretty much all you needed to buy the BSRA exam was a master’s degree and a non-New York City address, the DOE had Harcourt Assessment pull the exam off the market.