Remember about a month ago, when we asked you for questions you’d like answered by the DOE?

Well, the wheels grind slowly, even in midsummer, but grind they do: This afternoon, we’re speaking with Anna Commitante (head of Gifted +Talented for the Department) and OSEPO head Elizabeth Sciabarra. Watch the blog for a brief follow-up of that conversation, and deeper coverage in the next Insideschools alert.

Many thanks to our avid, intelligent, insightful readers for their participation and support.

by Liz Willen

There’s no way of getting around the constant search for schools in New York City — from getting into pre-kindergarten (far more complicated than necessary this year) to finding a good neighborhood school to choosing a district with enough reasonable middle school choices to mitigate the nagging “what’s next?” anxiety that accompanies raising kids here.

But pluses like diversity, excitement, culture, and the thrill of outdoor movies, music and river-art waterfalls, all within easy commuting distance, become meaningless for parents who do not believe their children can obtain a first-rate education in the New York City public school system. That’s why word-of-mouth makes the best schools instantly popular, and why landlords hold enormous power in neighborhoods graced with good schools.

New York City living is a series of trade-offs. You give up on the idea of a backyard in favor of a public park or playground, convince your children that all siblings share their bedrooms (or sleep in rooms that resemble monastery cells), forgo owning a car or move it constantly — and pay those pesky parking tickets when you forget. It’s all a lot easier to take if you feel good about the schools.

All of this became even more sharply apparent to me recently when a West Coast colleague without New York City know-how or connections who was moving here in a big hurry wanted help and advice. She wanted the basics, which can feel impossible: a decent apartment near a good neighborhood public school that would welcome her children as newcomers.

She figured she could accomplish this in one weekend.

I turned her onto to Insideschools.org and gave her a list of some of the most well known and loved schools near hew new job in lower Manhattan — PS 150, PS 234 and PS 89. A quick look at listings made it clear that a two-bedroom in these areas would cost at least $5,600, so lower Manhattan was quickly ruled out.

Then it was on to Brooklyn, where principals and parent coordinators were warm and welcoming — and some landlords asked for as many as five months’ rent as security, in advance. Prices were still killer — a fifth-floor walk-up “bargain” was nearly $3,000 a month. The second ‘bedroom’ owed its existence to a door on a walk-in closet.

The apartment could not be instantly discounted, though, as it had the huge advantage of being zoned for PS 321, long established as one of the city’s best.

Such high prices forced my colleague toward a wider search and scrutiny of other, less-commuting-convenient neighborhoods, with schools that were less well known, but equally loved by hard-working parents and staff.

For a renter in a hurry, it’s turning out to be a lot more homework. She’s coming back, but convinced she’ll have to look at the high cost of renting near the schools she wants as “tuition.”

That’s life in New York City.

Yesterday, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and a glittering lineup of civic and state luminaries traipsed over to Brooklyn Heights’ rejuvenated elementary school, PS 8, to announce the construction of a new school annex, to be completed in 2011. Overcrowding has been a worry during the school’s resurgence, although the most recent data available show the school isn’t bursting at the seams — yet. The school has grown from 62% capacity in 2004 to 85% in 2006.

The school’s welcome revival has been the driving force behind increasing demand for seats; Chancellor Klein, quoted on WNYC, said that the new construction shows that the DOE is responsive to neighborhoods, not districts. (We’d like to see him try that logic with parents of high-school students who no longer have zoned, neighborhood high schools to attend.)

The Heights, long one of Brooklyn’s best-heeled bedroom communities, proved quite the draw on a sultry summer afternoon. According to the DOE, “Chancellor Klein was joined by Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott, Deputy Chancellor Kathleen Grimm, Chief Family Engagement Officer Martine Guerrier, S[chool] C[onstruction] A[uthority] President Sharon Greenberger, Department of City Planning Director Purnima Kapur, PS 8 Principal Seth Phillips, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Councilman David Yassky, State Assemblywoman Joan Millman, State Senator Martin Connor, PTA co-President Tim Eldridge, Superintendent James Machen, PS 8 Assistant Principal Robert Mikos, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership President Joe Chan, Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy Deputy Director Nancy Webster, and Community Education Council representatives for School District 13.” Whew.

Nearly everyone took a turn at the mic: Klein, Walcott, Grimm, Greenberger, Guerrier, Phillips, Eldridge, Millman, Yassky, and Markowitz all contributed remarks.

Unfortunately, the building boomlet in Brooklyn Heights doesn’t include the development of new middle schools. Klein has stated that middle schools are his priority for the balance of the Mayor’s term; as summer melts into fall, the time is growing short to prove it.

Just over two weeks ago, we asked – and not for the first time — about high-school graduation rates and school report cards. (The Times asked, too, but didn’t get a clear answer.) The New York State Department of Education said in May that they would release the data by the end of June; nothing doing. In July, they said the data would post by the end of July. It’s the 30th. Anyone here think we’re going into August without knowing how schools did, and whether more kids are graduating than in years previous?

School report cards help parents (and professionals, like principals and teachers) learn more about schools by reporting detailed (”granular”) data on enrollment, testing, teacher qualifications and more. The grad rate is the education acid test — how many kids finish high school is a pretty effective yardstick, and the one against which Bloomberg and Klein measure their success.

The city and state disagreed for years on how to define and count high-school grads. This year, they’ve reached agreement on who qualifies as a graduate (excluding GED completers, for example). High schools rise and fall on grad rates and other accountability data; don’t parents — the taxpayers who support the schools — deserve timely reporting on how the city’s students are doing? The state and the city’s DOE owe the accountability they cite as a foundation of responsible, progressive school reform to the people who pay their salaries.

The end of July may seem like low season for high school, but parents of rising 8th graders with questions about small and charter high schools have a chance to learn more tomorrow evening, in a DOE workshop at Stuyvesant High School.

Nearly two dozen new small high schools will open in September, including Bard High School Early College II, a math-science spin on the highly touted BHSEC I model. Parents with thoughts to share or open questions can visit our forum to share their wisdom (and worries).

Today’s Times highlights a National Science Foundation study on gender differences in math – and despite the diatribes of Ivy-bound thinkers like Dr Lawrence Summers, the news is good: A review of 7,000,000 students in 10 states shows no gender split in math achievement scores.

In a related report on NPR, high school teachers say that their advanced-math classes enroll about 50:50 girls and boys, a sea change from a generation ago. But one math-loving girl put a real-world perspective on the study’s findings: Patricia Li, a San Jose, CA, high-school senior summering at MIT, says it’s not that more boys like math than girls — more like, everyone dislikes math in equal measure, which is its own kind of progress.

See the article in Science magazine for all the number-crunching, math-laden details.

District family advocates, positions newly created by the DOE’s Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy before the 2007-08 school year, will be fewer and farther between in 2008-09, according to a story in today’s Post.

Each district was to have at least two family advocates according to OFEA, over and above school-based parent coordinators. Now, it looks like more than half of the city’s 34 districts may have only one.

Calls to OFEA were inconclusive: Gwen Hopkins, Managing Director for Parent Leadership and Support, didn’t deny that cuts were planned, saying “many divisions have to weather this latest round of cuts.” Chief of Staff Melissa Harris put us on hold for a while, then came back to say she was “not at liberty” to respond to our questions.

Parents, if you’ve had interactions, positive or negative, with District Family Advocates, let us know. We’re interested in learning how thinning their ranks might affect everyday life at the city’s schools.

UPDATE: DOE spokesperson Melody Meyer provided additional details on the parent advocate cutbacks. Although some elementary/middle-school positions will be eliminated, she said, others will be added at the borough advocate level, in response to parent demand for high-school admissions guidance and other high-school information. Meyer could not say where cuts would occur, or whether the new borough advocates would receive formal training in the high-school admissions process.

Looks like the DOE has made room for pre-K siblings of elementary school students. Extra paraprofessionals now treading water in the DOE ‘excessed’ pool will ease the class-size expansion to 20 from the legally mandated cap of 18.

What’s great news for families may be a mixed bag for those who submitted second-round pre-K applications. The deadline for that process was last Friday; families can expect to hear placement news by mid-August.

Kids and sex are a combustible mix: Ask any parent — or middle-school dean who’s had to break up a clinch in a hall sweep. But kids’ sexuality is real, and complicated.

This week, Newsweek explores the human cost of coming out at a school in Oxnard, CA. Across the country, kids are self-identifying as gay years earlier than they did a generation ago. We can debate whether a hyper-sexualized culture hurries these declarations, or whether someone as young as 12 can be certain of their sexuality — but the personal risk that’s involved is beyond doubt: Kids who out themselves face ostracism, bullying, and worse.

Lots of NYC high schools have LGBT clubs, for gay, straight, and questioning kids, and one small, transfer high school offers safe haven to non-hetero high-schoolers. But what of middle school? Could what happened in Oxnard happen here?

With the real news slowing to a winter-molasses trickle, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings takes time out of her busy schedule to appear today on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. We wonder when New York’s own doubles act, Chancellor Joel Klein and Rev. Al Sharpton, will take their Education Equality Hour from web radio to the tv studio.

For staunch statisticians (and civic-minded parents), Eduwonkette digs deep into math “progress” today — with ELA on deck for tomorrow. Short take: Gaps in race-based scores, which we asked about here and here, could persist for decades, long after Klein, Sharpton, Spellings et al have folded their big tents and decamped from education leadership.

Students without placements or unhappy with school assignments in Brooklyn can attend the DOE’s new school fair today at Brooklyn’s Borough Hall from 4-7 p.m. New middle and high schools with open seats in Brooklyn will attend the fair; students can apply on the spot.

Although students citywide are invited to attend, today’s fair is only for Brooklyn schools. A similar new school fair will take place in Queens later in the month.

Another sweltering summer day, and the Daily News reports an extra measure of risk in NYC playgrounds – no news at all to any parent whose toddler’s hot-footed it from the sprinklers to the park bench. For those who can find a spot in the shade, summer reading, vetted by the DOE.

The merits of letting young children mature or holding them back, depending on your point of view, gets the Harvard once-over: Despite prevailing trends and the increasingly common practice among independent schools, it may not be the best choice, in the long view. But there’s plenty of good news here, with inspiring videos on real-world projects and ideas, thanks to filmmaker George Lucas. No accident his swashbuckling hero doubles as a bashful academic.

Our wish-list is still in DOE limbo — or maybe the summer doldrums is more like it. Stay tuned, and stay cool (city pools and cooling centers are open).

Hate to disturb the day of rest with this tiny AP item buried in Saturday’s Times, but making the Bible a legally sanctioned part of the high-school curriculum in a state as vast as Texas is too unnerving to ignore.

Texas is among the nation’s largest consumers (and commissioners) of textbooks; it’s Econ 101 that many publishers develop books to Texas standards and then distribute to schools in states nationwide. So who knows what these Bible-study seeds might sow — or where.

And take a look at the last sentence, citing teachers generally unfamiliar with the separation of church and state. How about church and schoolhouse door?

More money woes this week: city funding for pre-K programs run by community groups was cut in half, leading to the overnight evaporation of about 300 seats. Yet Obama accepted the endorsement of the national teachers union (AFT) union, vowing his commitment to “quality, affordable early childhood education for all our children,” and McCain announced his intention to fully fund No Child Left Behind, offer private school vouchers and put tutoring funds directly in the hands of parents. Ambitious plans on all sides, given the current economic climate.

Meanwhile, NYC education bigwigs are going national: Joel Klein is hoping to advise the next president and UFT President Randy Weingarten was elected head of the AFT. She says she’s staying in New York for now (and announcing fresh lawsuits on behalf of city teachers) but just might be grooming a successor. Klein, who claims accountability as his hallmark reform, might want to explain why it apparently took a newspaper article to stop the city school bus system from “losing” parent complaints.

Children’s health came under fresh scrutiny: A new report confirms what parents have known for eons — that America’s active kids morph into sedentary teenagers – and documents health risks that have led others to recommend cholesterol meds for kids. And each successive scandal that the Administration for Childrens Services (ACS) faces tragically impacts the city’s most vulnerable citizens.

Too many teens are stuck in middle school , according to a report released by Advocates for Children. While some kids in the Bronx are apathetic about keeping their neighborhood clean, juvenile offenders are helping restore and reopen classic American diners. And the Times celebrated high school theater geekdom at its best, which seems a lot more wholesome than the current crop of product-infused teen novels. But for now, ditch the screen, shut the book, and get out! It’s summer.

Here’s a paragraph from Chancellor Joel Klein’s testimony yesterday before the House panel on education; below it, some amplification on what the stats really mean, thanks to this handy PowerPoint from the DOE.

“In fourth-grade math, for example, the gap separating our African-American and white students has narrowed by more than 16 points. In eighth-grade math, African-American students have closed the gap with white students by almost 5 points. In fourth-grade reading, the gap between African-American and white students has narrowed by more than 6 points. In eighth-grade reading, the gap has closed by about 4 points.”

First, the good news: Overall, nearly 80% of fourth-graders score at or above grade level in math. That’s good. The race gap Klein highlights persists but is narrowing. Also good. But the 18-point split between black and white students leaps to 30 points by 8th grade, when math proficiency drops to 59% overall. So closing a gap by 5 points IS progress — but the gap that remains is six times as wide.

In English Language Arts (ELA), 26 points separate black and white fourth-grade students who score on or above grade level; the gap endures, at 29 points, in eighth grade. But the overall average score plummets in parallel with the math score — 61% score at or above grade level in fourth grade, but fewer than half, 43%, earn level 3/4 on their eighth grade ELA.

And two items worth the mention, although Klein elected to skip them: This year, grade 5 level 3/4 ELA scores were 69%; grade 6 level 3/4 scores plummeted to 53% — roughly, a 20% drop. What happened in that transitional year? And top scorers on the Level 4 ELAs represent a very small slice of the New York City pie: Only 5.8% of fourth graders and 2.9% of eighth graders scored Level 4 on these critical standardized exams.

Head spinning yet? The numbers sure are…

Last night’s Town Hall in Brooklyn was the first of many, according to City Council member Bill deBlasio, that will address issues raised by mayoral control of the city’s schools — a state law that’s slated to sunset in 2009.

Most speakers described the erosion of public influence on public education due to mayoral control: Community Education Councils as weak substitutes for elected school boards; policy decisions (and PR disasters) enacted by remote DOE leadership; and the mayorally-appointed (and thus beholden) Panel for Educational Policy in lieu of the former Board of Education, whose antagonism to the Mayor — any mayor — was legion.

Parents brought specific and legitimate complaints about the high-school admissions process and the exclusion of special-education parents and students from many policy-level conversations. Martine Guerrier, head of the Office of Family Engagement, was present; more than a few charged her office with “Orwellian” practices and a dismissive, “we’ll get back to you” philosophy. Notably, veteran school leaders said that parents are reluctant to step into leadership roles because of fears that their questions will lead to repercussions for their children.

In a practical reflection of the Mayor’s corporate ethos, small-business providers of resources for English Language Learners said their bids were no longer welcome at the DOE, which restricted some bids to businesses worth $5 million or more. The irony is particularly stinging given that Local Law 129 provides preferential bidding practices for small businesses, especially those headed by minorities and women — and that the DOE is apparently exempt from that ruling.

The UFT, ICOPE, ACORN/the Alliance for Quality Education, the Council for Economic Justice, Time Out From Testing and other advocates promise to keep the mayoral-control dialogue going.

The DOE has set dates for a rapid second round of Contracts for Excellence (C4E) public hearings, where parents, community leaders and advocates can speak out on C4E funding, which by law must go to students with the greatest needs, particularly students living in poverty and English Language Learners (ELLs).

Chancellor Joel Klein’s initial push to persuade Albany to redirect portions of C4E money incensed advocacy groups, including the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which stresses that C4E funds are meant to support and not replace city spending. But since the forceful resolution of the 2008-09 schools budget, the $63 million once in question is now budgeted “entirely within the mandates” of the law, according to the DOE.

This second round will take up school-based plans for spending developed by principals and school leadership teams. DOE sources say revised proposals will post to the DOE website next week; we’ll let you know when the links are live, so you can see what’s on deck at your child’s school.

The second round is scheduled as follows:
* Staten Island on Tuesday, July 29
* Queens on Tuesday, July 29
* Bronx on Wednesday, July 30
* Brooklyn on Wednesday, July 30
* Manhattan on Wednesday, July 30

Got any questions? Let us know.

After all the middle-school admissions brouhaha, disturbing reporting on students who can’t get out of the middle grades was released today by the Out of School Youth Coalition, a network of social service and advocacy groups. Some of these ‘overage’ middle-schoolers are 16 or 17 years old — in the seventh or eighth grade.

The DOE, in its wisdom, does not make data publicly available to discern citywide how many older teens are still stuck in middle school. In one survey of nine Bronx middle schools, more than a quarter of the 6,000 students were older than they should be for their grade — due to repeated retentions, disruptions in foster care, and complications in safety transfers, among other factors.

Since 2005, the DOE has developed alternative programs for older, underachieving high school students via its Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation. But comparable program options for younger students who’ve fallen behind are sorely lacking. It’s hard to imagine the daily difficulty and frustration of being 17 in a sea of 13-year-olds; could we make it any harder for these struggling kids?

Quiet week in NYC? Head down to D.C.: Tomorrow morning, Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein will address a House panel on progress in urban education, along with D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, Klein protegee D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee and public school leaders from Chicago and Atlanta.

We bet we’ll hear about test score gains and closing the achievement gap — but we doubt the conversation will include troubling nuances, like the fact that race-based gaps between brighter kids widen over time, even as they narrow for kids with lower skills. And we bet we won’t hear the nitty-gritty on why level 4 test scores have dropped for middle schoolers this year: Will anyone ask about the price bright students pay in a system so focused on raising low-level student skills?

We’ll likely hear about charter schools and merit pay, about leadership pipelines and increasing accountability. We’ll hear about rising grad rates — but bet the numbers they cite will be based on old data, as the newly calibrated scores are yet to be made public.

Will we learn anything new? We doubt it, but we’d love to be wrong. As it stands now, though, our bet is on celebration over substance, and photo-ops over hard questions.

Over two weeks ago, we asked about delays in reporting the high-school graduation rate; why, we wondered, were school report cards and other data MIA at the end of the school year?

Today, Elissa Gootman’s Times piece explores the question at length — but guess what? There’s no clear answer. Blame falls on pricey, whiz-bang data systems and on faulty reporting; fingers are wagged in many directions. But still, no data.

In an email earlier this month, Tom Dunn of the New York State Education Department said the report cards would probably post by late July. Well, we’re halfway there. We’re glad for the Times’ muscle on this question, and hope that we’ll know the grad rate before this year’s rising seniors show up for school in September.

This morning Randi Weingarten, president of the UFT, was officially elected head of the national teacher’s union, the American Federation of Teachers. Weingarten has wielded enormous influence over the past decade as head of the 200,000-member New York union, where she plans to remain, although some question whether anyone can handle leading both unions at once – even a work-horse like Weingarten.

Weingarten speaking in June with Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein.

In New York, she secured a 43 percent raise for teachers, fought for smaller class sizes, and railed against high stakes testing. Weingarten’s relationship with the mayor depends on the issue: she’s not afraid to make a joint announcement with him in the morning and then blast another of his initiatives later that afternoon. And although she has generally been very popular among New York teachers, her tentative support of charter schools (she has even opened two of them) and support for merit-based pay is controversial among union members.

In her acceptance speech today Weingarten – the daughter of a teacher and a former part-time social studies teacher herself – argued that schools should become multi-service community centers, offering a lot more than just classroom instruction. That does sound better than test prep, but what’s her plan to make such a dreamy vision actually happen on a large scale? And how will Weingarten stay focused on New York, now that she has vaulted to the national stage?

The open-mic education Town Hall slated for this Wednesday in Brooklyn will include a number of city officials, according to Evan Stone, a public-school teacher in the Bronx who’s ’summering’ in Bill deBlasio’s office. “We are expecting Senator Eric Adams, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, [City] Council Members [education committee chair Robert] Jackson, [David] Yassky, [Diana] Reyna, [James] Vacca, [Letitia] James and others.”

“[Also coming are] … representatives from the United Federation of Teachers, the Alliance for Quality Education, Time out from Testing, the Independent Commission on Public Education, ACORN, The After-School Corporation, The Office of the Public Advocate, the Citizens Union Foundation, and others.” Quite the lineup.

The town hall will weigh the impact of mayoral control on community involvement in the city’s schools — and how to insure that parents’ voices are heard as reauthorization looms.

RSVPs are still coming in. The DOE Representatives have been invited, said Stone, but “have not confirmed their attendance.” Very diplomatically put, but that silence sounds a lot like ‘no’ to us.

Do-gooders are building 11 new playgrounds at Bronx elementary schools this summer, but parents of leaf-picking toddlers just might face summonses, like one unlucky mother in Chelsea. Five public school students, who grew up playing on city fields, were picked in the Major League Baseball draft and face a tough choice — go pro or go to college — while students at the Bronx Early College Academy, who’d hoped to earn college credits in high school, now learn that there may not be space for their high school at all come fall.The DOE and NYPD both report that crime is down in city schools, but a college-bound recent graduate was tragically shot and killed on the street in Rockaway yesterday. Brooklyn teens who gave their teachers a laxative-laced cake had their charges reduced while truly disturbing charges were filed against a teacher accused of abusing a disabled student.

Just when public hearings were scheduled on mayoral control of the schools, there is a bid for two new unions – one for public school parents and one for the students. Hard questions should be raised about bad record-keeping at the DOE and the ask-questions-later mentality of ACS workers. Outraged New Jerseyans questioned a superintendents’ golden retirement parachute, and some worry that questions about potential score inflation of New York standardized tests may never be answered.

Quiet week at Tweed and City Hall? Time for Times stories about higher education, like this one, this one, this one, this one, this one and this one. The Sun’s Elizabeth Green wrote about a well-regarded anonymous education blogger and the DOE’s “truth squad,” which monitors education blogs for net-speed inaccuracies.

Skewing to the summering-away crowd, the Times counsels parents not to worry if teens complain about the isolation of the family summer house — once the kids go to college, they’ll begin to enjoy the second home again. (Whew!) And in town, it seems that more parents are building mini-teen centers in their homes to keep their kids off the streets (and mini would be the operative word for most NYC apartments). But kids who created their own suburban summer fun are wrangling with lawyers instead of shagging wiffle balls. One, two, three strikes and we’re out! Have a great weekend.

Families of children with special needs face labyrinthine bureaucratic challenges that would strike terror into the hearts of most gen-ed parents; the process by which a child is evaluated and identified for an IEP (individualized education plan) can be overwhelming and intimidating, not to mention totally confusing to those unfamiliar with edu-jargon and bureau-speak.

Fortunately, a young blog focused on special-needs students and families offers some enlightenment; check out this post for information and leads to other links, as well as our guide to navigating the special-ed universe. And to connect with other city parents dealing with similar challenges, try our parent-moderated forum – there’s lots to learn.

One commenter yesterday asked for more Town Hall meetings on education; this morning, another ambitiously proposed a Town Hall in every school. For starters, City Council member Bill deBlasio of Brooklyn has convened an education Town Hall next week, July 16th, at Brooklyn Borough Hall, from 6:30 to 8 pm.

Planners say that education advocates and elected officials will be on hand to hear parents’, students’, and teachers’ opinions on school governance and mayoral control; we’re trying to learn who’ll be there and whether anyone from DOE plans to attend.

For information and to RSVP, write educationtownhall@gmail.com. (Right now, they’ve booked the Community Room for the meeting — but a flood of RSVPs could prompt a change of venue.)

Details to come when we’ve got ‘em.

A second round of pre-K applications is underway for September 2008 placements. Any family may apply, according to the DOE, including those who’ve not applied before, those who applied earlier but weren’t offered seats, and those who chose to decline the first-round offer.

Here’s a directory of schools with pre-K openings; more than 450 schools have space in their full- or half-day programs, although the number of actual seats isn’t clear. Siblings have first preference provided the older sibling’s school is listed first (the cause of much frustration and confusion on the first round, when it wasn’t spelled out on the application). After siblings, priority goes to zoned, in-district kids, and then to out-of-district applicants.

The application is here. Mail it to the address in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania (at the bottom of the application) or, if you’re of the “better safe than sorry” persuasion, walk it into your local borough placement center by Friday, July 18. Placements will be completed by mid-August.

Good luck!

Last week, we asked readers for questions they’d like to pose to the Powers That Be at the DOE, and you responded with smart, savvy, provocative ideas, summarized in the recent Insideschools alert.

We have another few days to gather questions. Anything you forgot to ask on the last round? Fire away.

While the first days of school may seem blissfully distant, there’s no time like now for planning. Remember Aesop? Be the ant, not the grasshopper.

The DOE’s Office for Family Engagement and Advocacy has summer workshops for parents; most are on Saturdays to encourage working parents’ participation. If your summer plans mean weekends away, write the OFEA for information on their monthly workshops beginning in fall.

Parent engagement can transform a school and its culture; just look at what happened at PS 11 in Clinton Hill. Working with other families in your child’s school builds community, a persistent theme among our commenters. But change doesn’t come without sweat and effort; if you don’t invest it, who will?

Remember that ant: Invest your creative energy now; your children, their friends, and kids you don’t even know will reap the rewards.

If your big kids are starting to bounce off the walls — or if you’re at wit’s end, trying to work and juggle kid care — the PSAL, which sponsors school sports teams, has just the summer ticket: The Big Apple Games. Free to kids 8 to 19 in all five boros, there’s swimming and track, lacrosse and volleyball, along with the full range of team sports and Junior Lifeguard training at 12 pools citywide. For details, and for locations of programs for kids with special needs, visit their website or call 311.

Hope all our readers enjoy a festive (if slightly soggy) Fourth of July. If your family does something non-traditional and fun, circumventing the beach-BBQ-fireworks trifecta, let us know. We bet you’ve got some good ideas — as usual.

On this end, we’re taking a weekend break. Thanks to all for their continued support and participation — working on this project is a blast (pyro pun entirely intentional).

Early round-up this week — our attempt to get to the news before we get to the grill.

Yesterday, we looked at No Child Left Behind and the second annual Learning Environment Survey results. Even though results were generally positive, three out of four students didn’t take an art class!

Good news for science in Harlem: Millions poured in for middle schools (as first reported on this blog), and hundreds of high school science students found worthwhile (and paid!) summer work in labs. PS 229 in Queens may grow their own environmental scientists – students there are certainly learning how to act green.

Bloomberg’s expensive Leadership Academy will now be added to the taxpayers’ bill, while a lauded principal (not an Academy grad) faces allegations of test score fraud. A few of his teachers might be yanked from the classroom and thrown into the rubber room, but they might not be there that long, according to a new agreement between the UFT and DOE. Is there a rubber room where we can stash daycare providers who have been stealing from the state? Or the students behind anti-Sikh hate crimes?

While the Times lauds a program to help students stay in school, the Daily News publicizes parents’ concerns over older and under-credited students sharing a school building with younger kids. The News also covers public schools that have been closed for good, and the Times showcases the last American high school for would-be Catholic priests.

Guess what? Pre-k admissions was a mess this year, and even paying top-dollar for private school doesn’t guarantee Junior will get into Harvard/Yale/Princeton. But a story about a pre-k program that appears to work wonders and Christoph Niemann’s charming illustrations celebrating his sons’ love of the subway system kick-off the holiday weekend on an aptly joyful note.

Anyone else feel in the eye of a swirling PR-storm? The Fund for Public Schools (the private-money gathering arm of the DOE) has sponsored a swath of glossy ads showcasing progress in the public schools that would make the Mad Ave mavens plenty proud. See the ads here – but if you watched a half-hour or more of TV last night, we’re sure you’ve seen the new, test-score-touting ad already.

Knickerbocker SKD is the agency behind the campaign, which has been underway since 2007; according to the Fund for Public Schools, the production and media buy for this wave cost about $1 million. Beginners, they’re not: Also on their client list are Mayor Bloomberg, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau and real-estate megadeveloper Forest City Ratner.

The Fund, first headed by Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, raises private millions for education reform. But as Kathryn S. Wylde, the president of the Partnership for New York City, put it in 2005, the Mayor’s own philanthropy is a powerful model. “He had a lot of chits to call in.” And call he did.

A new crack in the NCLB edifice has emerged, as 6 states have won the right to design their own means to achieve federally-mandated landmarks of academic progress. According to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, up to 10 states will pilot their own achievement and accountability programs; 17 states applied for the program, including New York, which didn’t make the short list.

Spellings also bemoaned Congress’ decision to yank funds for Reading First, the Bush-endorsed reading program that’s shown flat results — and been linked with dubious business practices by the Education Department’s own Inspector General. In a trope that echoes New York testing outcomes, Spellings says state data show the progam is working, while federal review documents no effect at all on reading comprehension.

Does education reform merit attention in the Presidential election? Lots of Americans agree — to a point. This poll puts education third, behind gas prices and economic concerns, but ahead of health care, homeland security, and the environment (dead last).

Mayor Bloomberg announced the results of the 2008 Learning Environment Survey this morning; not surprisingly, there’s good news and bad news.

This second year of the survey generated a significantly larger response, especially at schools that scored poorly last year (targets of DOE response-generating efforts). Overall, parents report high levels of satisfaction with their childrens’ education and teachers; teachers who responded say they’re more satisfied, too, but some areas, like professional development, still fall short.

Of great interest to us is the student survey, which shows a kid-typical mix of answers. (Middle and high-schoolers were invited to participate; between 11% and 15% actually did.)

Learning environment, for kids, means the life of the hallway and the schoolyard–what’s said too loud in the cafeteria and who bumps who in gym. Bullying, fighting, and adults who yell continue to be problems, kids say. About half feel they can’t turn to adults at school for help; more than half say that students don’t “help and care about each other” or “treat each other with respect.”

Four in ten students report that their schools don’t have enough variety, in classes and activities, to keep them engaged. And it’s still really hard to be smart and cool: Almost half of the students the DOE heard from say that kids who earn high grades at their school don’t get other students’ respect.

Bottom line: The grown-ups seem happier than they did last year. The kids — well, they’re still struggling. They want more challenge, and they need more support.

The DOE plans to post citywide survey results and reports for individual schools this afternoon; we’ll update this post with a link when they do. (Learning Environment Surveys and attendance account for 15% of each school’s annual progress report.)

We’re hoping to take advantage of summer to ask the DOE questions about some things that confused many readers this year, both to understand what happened and explore what’s on deck for 2008-09.

We want to know about middle-school admissions – the calendar, the process, and how special-needs students can better be included. We want to know about gifted + talented programs — admissions, lotteries, citywide schools, and qualifying tests. And we want to know how the DOE aims to prevent the pre-K admissions confusion that characterized this year’s experience. We also have questions about centralization and how much decision-making power rests with the districts, for both K and middle school.

What do you want to know? Now’s the time to write our wish list; with weeks to go before the pre-September ramp-up, we can try to get some answers. Let us hear from you.