The  Department of Education’s proposed closing of some 20 schools—including several large high schools which will be phased out and replaced by small schools—prompted an outcry by students and staff  before the holiday break.

Teachers rallied to save some of the large high schools including Norman Thomas, but the decision of whether to approve the closings is in the hands of the Panel for Educational Policy which will meet and vote on Jan. 26 at Brooklyn Tech High School. To date the PEP has overwhelmingly supported the mayor’s and chancellor’s wishes about school changes.

A provocative piece about the pros and cons of small schools, which during Mayor Bloomberg’s tenure have increasingly replaced large high schools, was posted on NYCEducator last week. Among other issues, the poster questions the small school “themes,” their ability to offer elective courses and support services to students, and the lack of collaboration between as many as six schools sharing a building. (more…)

As the momentum for yesterday’s student MetroCard protest built up, a heated debate developed on the facebook event page. Because it is the MTA which is proposing the elimination of student MetroCards, the protest was held in front of their headquarters on Madison avenue. But one commenter insisted repeatedly and vehemently that it should be held at City Hall. Another posted an angry, all-caps comment telling them to get their facts straight and insisted that the proposed student MetroCard cut isn’t the fault of City Hall.

The debate left facebook and joined us on the street. About halfway through the protest, one student stood up on a signpost and started yelling for us all to walk to City Hall. Other students yelled back, “it’s not City Hall’s fault!”

A few minutes later, a reporter came up to me and a group of friends and asked “who do you blame for this?” Someone said the MTA, and I agreed. Someone said Bloomberg, and I agreed. Someone said Patterson, and again I agreed.

Naturally it left me thinking: Who’s to blame? (more…)

The State Supreme Court today ruled against the Department of Education’s plan for development and use of the playing fields on Randall’s Island, long used for public school sports. The city, in partnership with the Randall’s Island Sports Foundation, brokered a deal with 20 private schools to upgrade and expand the fields. In exchange for hefty contributions towards the redevelopment project, the private schools would have a 20 year lease for the exclusive use of the majority of the area during school hours. According to the State Supreme court the city’s plan is illegal, and must go through full community and environmental review.

Community groups from East Harlem and South Bronx, park advocates, public schools parents, and Civil Rights Attorney Norman Siegel, returned the case to court after a previous ruling (February 2008) was ignored by the city. According to Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, who reported on the ruling, “The judge was so angry at the city’s failure to respect the previous court decisino in the case that she ordered the city to pay court costs and attorney fees.” 

Reporting the original case in 2008, The New York Times said, “The ruling means that the Bloomberg administration must essentially start from scratch by submitting its deal with the private schools, which include Buckley, Dalton and Chapin, through the Uniform Land Use Review Process. That process requires major projects to be approved by the City Planning Commission and the City Council, and to be reviewed by the local community board and the borough president. The agreement had been approved by the city’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee, a majority of whose members were appointed by Mr. Bloomberg.”

New Yorkers have a new Commissioner of Education, David Steiner, who now holds broad powers over our kids. The Alliance for Quality Education has posted a video featuring education activists, parents, grandparents, and students expressing their hopes for what the new boss will do for our kids in the new year.

We all want more oversight, accountability, and resources devoted to our kids. Seasoned education advocates, including Geri Palast from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, state the political case well. But we’d like to hear more from kids, parents, and grandparents, and anyone concerned about our kids who are in the system right now.

What advice do you have for Commissioner Steiner? If you were the boss of New York’s schools in the midst of a recession, what would you do?

Insideschools.org is here to amplify your voice, so post a comment, make a video, this is your chance to speak up and be heard.

And if you can, please donate now so we can continue to bring you the inside scoop on what’s going on inside our schools. Your donation is fully tax-deductible.

It was hard not to feel empathy for the aspiring dancer depicted on the front page of the New York Times last week, in an excellent piece by Jennifer Medina that looked at the grueling schedule of auditions for ninth-graders hoping to snag a spot in a performing arts high school.

The endurance test had to have struck a chord with parents who are going through auditions. It for me brought back the frightening moment a year ago when I thought I heard my now 9th grade son tell me that his much practiced musical audition to Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School was “awful,’ – instead of  “awesome.”

Auditions are rife with tension and drama, but lost in the piece was an ever present question for parents whose children ultimately get into a performing arts high school. What will the quality of the academic experience be, and what trade-offs, if any, will kids and parents have to make? (more…)

The holidays are my favorite time of year to check in with teacher friends, simply to hear what their students give them as gifts. For the most part the kids bestow endearing homemade cards and trinkets, with the usual array of baked goods.

Some private school teachers, though, receive jaw-droppingly expensive gifts. One reports getting gold jewelry from Tiffany more than once and, one year, a cruise. Another was presented with a giant porcelain ice bucket in the form of a top hat with a glove draped fetchingly over the brim. A pal who taught at a liberal-minded private school received no gifts at all, because acknowledgment of the holidays was taboo.

No such extravagance or holiday ban at my daughter’s school, PS 29 - at least not that I’ve witnessed. The PTA tries to eliminate awkwardness and the possibility of one-upmanship by encouraging a group gift (okay, according the the DOE’s conflict of interest rules). Parents chip in an amount they see fit. Often, a figure is suggested.This year in our kindergarten classes,  the recommended amount was $15 to $20 per family. Donations are anonymous and everyone signs the group cards. (more…)

A dozen teachers gathered round a table at UFT headquarters one evening last week to hammer out the details of their pre-Earth Day teacher’s fair. The fair, to be held in March, will help create “teach-ins” about sustainability and the environment — lessons that teachers can implement in their classrooms on April 22, Earth Day 2010.
The meeting was kicked off with presentations by Mary Most, the Department of Sanitation’s doyenne of school recycling, and John Shea, the CEO of the Division of School Facilities. Shea is the driving force behind many sustainability efforts in the schools. He noted progress in the network of sustainability coordinators now in place in more than 1,200 schools, and urged schools to sign up for the Green Cup Challenge energy reduction contest which starts in mid-January. (more…)

At a press conference yesterday outside the busy 72nd Street subway stop, Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer called on the MTA to restore funding for student MetroCards.  As has been widely reported,  among  the  cutbacks to make up for a budget shortfall, the MTA is planning to cut funding for student MetroCards and require students to pay one-way fares next year, and full fare starting in 2011.

Stringer pointed out that the estimated cost of the Free-Fare Student Program is only about 2% of the total MTA budget and would affect some 400,000 students.  His office is circulating a petition to restore student MetroCards.

For a city where yellow bus service ends after 6th grade, and middle and high school students increasingly rely on subways and buses to get to school, officials say these  cuts will disproportionately affect the city’s low-income students and families.

The student MetroCard cuts come the same month that thousands of  students submitted applications to middle and high schools, in many cases in districts and boroughs far from their homes.

How will the cuts affect school choice and your family? Do you think the MTA is unfairly targeting New York City students or is this a necessary move?

At Arts & Letters, we are embarking on a month of preparation for our Quality Review. For those of you who do not know, the Quality Review stands next to the Progress Report Card, those notorious A-F grades that appear in the newspapers. These are the Department of Education’s two most important measures of school success. While the Progress Reports mostly show a snapshot of a school’s progress and performance on state tests, the Quality Review seeks to provide a more holistic view of a school.

In truth, it has taken a while for the DOE to settle on a “rubric” or measure, that encapsulates as well what a “well-developed” school should look like. Nationally, and even locally, departments of education have hesitated to declare the qualities of a good school, but the research is resoundingly clear, and the NYC Department of Education is taking a stand. (more…)

A dozen New York City high schools were awarded gold medals by US News and World Report, in its annual ranking of the 100 best high schools in the nation. Schools are ranked according to the degree to which all students meet state standards, and that minority and economically disadvantaged students in the school performed better than statistically expected on state tests. Schools that met these benchmarks were ranked according to their performance on Advanced Placement or Baccalaureate tests, factoring in the achievements of poor and minority students.

The top 100 schools won gold medals, including 12 NYC high schools. Of those, six were highly selective specialized high schools. Of the 461 schools that were given silver medals, NYC high schools were awarded 20, and of the 1,189 bronze medalists, NYC schools received 42. One school won honorable mention.

Gold medalists, in alphabetical order, are Baccalaureate School for Global Studies, Bronx High School of Science, Brooklyn Tech, High School for Dual Language and Asian Studies, High School of American Studies at Lehman College, High School for Law and Public Service, Newcomers High School, New Explorations for Science and Technology +Math, Queens High School for Science at York College, Staten Island Tech, Stuyvesant High School, and Townsend Harris.

Q: My daughter applied Early Decision to an Ivy League school and just found out she was “deferred.” Her college counselor told her the school was a “reach,” but my daughter chose to apply anyway because she really loves this college and felt she had a good chance. Her grades and scores are very high and, frankly, she is one of the top achievers at her school. Now she is devastated. A “no” might have been easier to deal with — but “deferred”? Is this just a nicer way of saying “no”? It seems to me a kind of admissions limbo. Why do they do this?

A: A deferral is not a denial, but you are right — it is a type of limbo, where your daughter’s application is hovering, neither accepted nor rejected. It’s not a comfortable place to be, but not entirely hopeless. Your daughter is obviously an excellent student, as this Ivy League school is still interested in her — they want to keep her in the running. Her college counselor was right, though, in telling her that this college was a “reach.” Because competition for admission to Ivies is so keen, and because their acceptance rates are extremely low (many under 10%), they are all “reach” schools no matter how strongly qualified the applicants.

Going into the application process with this understanding should ward off optimism, but it’s hard not be hopeful. So of course your daughter feels tremendously let down. She might feel a bit better if she realizes that, having had the courage to take herself into a hugely competitive arena, she survived the first cut. (more…)

 Have a question for Jane?  Search archives | Contact the College Counselor

I overheard a conversation this fall between a group of high school freshmen, comparing the weight of their backpacks, their teachers, and their overall adjustment.

Many spoke of going back to visit their middle school several times already, a telling clue. One described the juniors and seniors as “giants,” another said the hallways were so crowded he could barely walk. Another missed lunch because he couldn’t find the cafeteria. The number of exams seemed daunting, as did the competition to get on sports teams and in other activities. A performing arts student said she had spent so much time worrying about her tryout, she hadn’t thought about “the school part, and all the homework.”

All had a slightly glazed look in their eyes. I listened carefully (the conversation happened to take place around my kitchen table). In a suburban setting, the group would have moved together to the same local high school; here sat a group of friends who now represented five very different choices. (more…)

Calling all students, teachers, and administrators!

Join the New York City Student Union on Monday, Dec. 14t at 5 pm as we host our second Student Government Forum. The forum is being held at the UFT offices downtown (50 Broadway between Exchange and Morris.) We will bring together student representatives from around the city, as well as those who are trying to form new governments.

The goal is to establish a basis for an effective student government, help each other improve or create new entities, and connect our organizations with each other. This is essential to increasing student voice and power in our schools. The event is open to students, teachers, administrators and anyone else who wants to come. (more…)

While New York City’s scores on the National Appraisal of Educational Progress math exams rose steadily between 2003-2006, the NAEP’s 2009 report reveals they have since stalled. Fourth-grade scores increased only slightly between 2007-2009, while eighth-grade scores remained average.

These results stand in contrast to the highly-criticized increase in the state’s math exam scores. Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch explained to GothamSchools that the state test covers fewer fields and is much less accurate in measuring progress than the NAEP.

The scoring gap between ethnic populations also stalled. While the state exam showed a statistical narrowing of the divide, the NAEP reveals a slight widening.

What do you think of the math curriculum at your children’s school? Do the state exams accurately reflect their progress?

Brooks found a new game he likes.

So after dinner, my husband and I now often hear “Simon says put your hands up in the air.” And we enthusiastically raise our arms. “Simon says put your hands on your head.” And we put our hands on heads. “Simon says stomp your feet.” And we stomp our feet. And then in his playful high-pitched voice, he sings: “Simon didn’t say-ay!”

He can read chapter books while some of his classmates are still working on identifying letters, but he doesn’t understand this simple game that his peers easily mastered long ago. He WILL understand it in time, with enough support and perseverance (both of which he thankfully has an abundance), but until then, how do we intervene? (more…)

The Department of Education announced yesterday that nine schools have been added to the growing list of New York City schools slated for closure — eight were placed in jeopardy over the past week.

Among the new additions are four large, comprehensive high schools that house 6,000 students collectively: Paul Robeson High School in Brooklyn, Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan, Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx, and Beach Channel High School in Queens. Three of the schools slated to close — New Day Academy, Global Enterprise Academy, and MS 334 — opened under Chancellor Joel Klein.

Visit GothamSchools for a rundown on the announcements and the DOE’s official press information.

UPDATE 12/9/09: The Department of Education proposed the phase-out of three more high schools, bringing to 22 the number of school closings announced in the past week (closings are subject to public hearings): Alfred E. Smith, a vocational school in the Bronx, the School of Business, Computer Applications and Entrepreneurship, one of four small schools on the troubled Campus Magnet complex in Queens, and the Monroe Academy for Business/Law, in the Bronx.

District 20’s Community Education Council will vote Wednesday on a proposal to alter the district’s zoning boundaries. While the changes are intended to alleviate overcrowding, some local residents fear the proposed boundaries will divide schools along ethnic lines, reducing student diversity.

The DOE has acknowledged serious overcrowding in the district and plans to open five new schools over the next few years. Under the current proposal, schools in Bay Ridge, Fort Hamilton, Borough Park, and Bensonhurst would see reductions in their student pool, in order to make space for two new schools, PS 971 at 62nd Street and Fourth Avenue and PS 264 at 88th Street and Fourth Avenue.

Educators and administrators at PS 69 are speaking out against the rezoning. If the plan is approved, the school will no longer accept students who live between Second Avenue and Sixth Avenue. PS 69’s principal, Jaynemarie Capetanakis, told the New York Post that this alteration “takes away a lot of Hispanic and Arabic families.” The school  is currently overcrowded- running at 145 percent of its capacity, but it does not want to sacrifice it diversity to reduce overcrowding, the principal and several teachers told school officials at a recent meeting.

The District 20  CEC will vote on the proposal at its  7 p.m. meeting tomorrow night, Dec. 9, at PS/IS 104.

Dear Judy,

The December holidays are approaching, and I am wondering how to broach the topic of other religious celebrations to our son. He has already come home from school talking excitedly about an upcoming Kwanzaa parade and chatting away about Santa Claus. While I think it’s great that my young son is being exposed to other cultures in his public school, how can I be sure that the school will know where to draw the line? What are the guidelines about holiday celebrations in school? In this day and age, where it seems Christmas is everywhere, how can I make sure to help him distinguish between our family’s traditions and those that others celebrate?

Thanks very much,
Menorah mom

Dear MM,

For years, parents in a multi-cultural city like NYC have been facing the “December Dilemma”—the desire to maintain personal practices and traditions in a context of competing holidays and symbols. New York City families celebrate Christmas, Chanukah, Eid al-Adha (which sometimes falls in December), the winter solstice, Kwanzaa and more. And some do not recognize any religion.

Of course, parents have the responsibility of teaching their own beliefs and principles to their kids but schools have long been the locus of this dilemma, because that is where kids encounter competing cultures. The subject has been deliberated in lower courts across the land, yet there is no definitive Supreme Court ruling. However there are guidelines, weighing in on the side of keeping in-school holiday celebrations secular, and inclusive. You can find a summary of guidelines and court opinions about appropriate practice, endorsed by 17 educational and religious organizations, at First Amendment Center.

More to the point of your own concerns, a recent “reminder” (below) to principals from the Department of Education, does set boundaries on holiday displays and appropriate celebrations. The key is to help your school maintain an atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect for the diversity of the city, even if your own school does not have a widely diverse student body.

• The display of holiday symbol decorations with secular dimensions is permitted. Displays that depict images of deities, other religious figures, or religious texts are prohibited. Permitted symbols include, but are not limited to, Christmas trees, kinaras, dreidels, Menorahs, and the Star and Crescent.
• Holiday displays must not appear to promote or celebrate any single religion or holiday. Therefore, any permitted symbol or decoration must be displayed simultaneously with other symbols or decorations reflecting different beliefs or customs.
• All holiday displays should be temporary in nature.
• The primary purpose of all displays should be to promote the goal of fostering understanding and respect for the rights of all individuals regarding their beliefs, values, and customs.

Judy

P.S.  Also puzzled about holiday gift giving to teachers?  Check out an Ask Judy on that subject.

 Have a school question for Judy?  Search archives | Contact Judy

Imagine your kindergartner arrived at school each day, tackled the fundamentals of reading and writing, listened to stories, and sang with her class…all in French.

At PS 58 in Brooklyn, this scene is reality. In the dual-language immersion program, now in its third year, the day is split between French in the morning and English in the afternoon. Half the students in two classes per grade are native English speakers admitted by lottery (they must be zoned for PS 58), and the other half are francophone children — meaning they speak and understand enough French to pass a proficiency test. Zoned francophone children have priority, but if any spots remain, fluent children outside the zone may test in.

The program has gained such popularity that, according to Parent Coordinator Joan Bredthauer, interested parents have phoned from Paris and Montreal. (more…)

Winter Recess begins December 24th. Some students will head home with a bookbag full of holiday homework, while others will have a lighter load.

In this week’s poll, we’d like to know how you feel about teachers assigning homework over the holiday break. Is it important to keep the momentum of the learning process moving during that downtime?  Or, do kids deserve a break?

Vote now to let us know how you feel about holiday homework.  Kids are welcome to vote too!

You’ll find this week’s poll near the upper left hand side of this page, and you can share your comments here.

In our November poll, we asked how you felt about your parent/teacher conferences. Of the nearly  550 responses, 41% said, “Great! I really had the sense that the teacher ‘gets’ my child.” That’s encouraging! Twenty-one percent said it was “Just OK.”

Fourteen percent said it was “Awful,”  and 12% were “Frustrated” because it was short and uninformative. Nine percent did not attend.

Middle and high school parents seemed the most disgruntled, perhaps because their time with the teacher typically lasts only three minutes and waits can be long. One parent was so discouraged that she said she may skip it next time.

Post a comment to let us know how your parent-teacher conference went!

Yesterday the Department of Education announced its  intention to close four schools it considers failing:  Maxwell High School for Career and Technical Education in Brooklyn,  the Academy of Environmental Science Secondary High School  in East Harlem,  KAPPA II in Harlem, and the Frederick Douglass Academy III in the Bronx.

Today the DOE added four more schools to the list: PS 332, a K-8 school in Bushwick;  the Academy of  Collaborative Education, a middle school in Harlem that opened in 2006;  and two high schools:   Jamaica High School in Queens, and the School for Community Research and Learning which opened in 2003 in the Bronx.

The Panel on Educational Policy must approve the school closings, and, according to state law, there must be a 45-day period of public comment before the closings become official. (more…)

Eighth-graders and their families are in the final frenzy of filling out high school applications before tomorrow’s Dec. 4 due date after a fall of attending fairs, visiting schools, taking exams, and auditioning.

The process is a daunting one, despite reforms in the system and efforts by the central enrollment office to get information out to parents. It’s especially confusing for families at risk, (as described in a June 2009 Schools Watch report), parents who don’t speak English, and those who don’t have time to research all the options. No wonder many are wondering, “is there a better way?” as our High School Hustle blogger Liz Willen asked in her recent post.

DOE officials agree that parents need all the help they can get. Yesterday they announced the launch of a “High School Admissions Ambassador” program, recruiting parents to teach parents about high school admissions. (more…)

Allison Gaines Pell is the founder and principal of a new, small public middle school called Arts & Letters, located in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. She lives in Brooklyn, and is a public school parent herself. We are pleased to add her contributions to our blog.

“Inspiration, hunger: these are the qualities that drive good schools. The best we [educators] can do is to create the most likely conditions for them to flourish, and then get out of their way.” — Ted Sizer, Founder of the Coalition of Essential Schools

Several weeks ago, I attended the Fall Forum of the Coalition of Essential Schools,an organization started 25 years ago by Ted Sizer, a great man who passed away in October. I was both inspired and saddened.

Saddened because I see the ways in which movements to create and sustain innovative places of learning can be marginalized due to the intense testing pressure that school leaders face. It takes much longer, and is much harder, to create a nurturing community of learners, and to change the beliefs and values of adults to create that culture, than it is to look at and analyze test scores.

Inspired because I saw the ways that so many educators across the city and the country continue to elevate the thinking and learning that takes place in our public schools. Too often, educational practices that lead to powerful and active learning opportunities (the kind we each can remember from our own lives), are reserved for the nation’s private or elite schools. This has to change. (more…)

Proposed changes in District 2 zoning attracted at least 100 parents on Monday night to the first of several meetings held to hear community concerns about new catchment areas for its popular downtown and Upper East Side schools. Parents have long been concerned with overcrowding and now that two new schools — PS 276, the Battery Park City School and PS 397, Spruce Street School — have been added downtown, rezoning is needed to allocate students among them. Rezoning is a temporary fix while several plans for middle schools and other new sites are still in planning stages.

A Power Point presentation given by Elizabeth Rose of the Department of Education’s Office of Portfolio and Planning emphasized four things about the proposed rezoning of District 2. First, she said, there are enough seats. Second, current students and younger sibling priority rights are important to District 2residents and will be protected by the DOE. Third, the DOE welcomes any and all feedback before voting on a final plan. And finally, it is impossible to make everyone happy. (more…)

We’ve recently submitted an application to the Knight News Challenge, which funds projects that:

1. Use digital open-source media
2. To distribute news and information
3. In a local community

With help from the Knight News Challenge, we can make Insideschools.org sustainable here in New York and replicable to other cities across the country. With help from you, we can make our entry better and increase our chances of winning! You can read our entry here, and register to rate our project and leave comments and suggestions.

While you’re there, you might also want to check out another idea we like called Showbus, which will allow parents to track exactly where their child’s school bus is along its route.

Let us know what you think!

Q: I understand the importance of the college essay, and how admissions people use it to get a sense of the whole applicant beyond the transcript and test scores.  But what’s the point of all those short essays?  Write p 277 of your autobiography!  Write a haiku about yourself!  Why are you applying to us? These short essays are annoying and I don’t see the purpose.  Don’t they already have enough information in the application to make a decision?

A:  I am sure that every other student working to submit an application by the deadline has been similarly annoyed and wonders the same thing.  But don’t kid yourself - these “short” questions are of the utmost importance!  Admissions officers have a tremendous amount of work to do; they are not making up extra questions just to give you and them more to do!  There is a reason.  For one thing, college admissions people know that the longer essay, which is usually considered to be “the” essay, may have been tweaked and edited and corrected by mom, dad, teachers, Uncle Fred, or even a paid advisor, and may no longer represent the genuine voice of the student.  And the genuine, natural voice is what they want to hear.  Dashing off - not being thoughtless, but being a bit more spontaneous - those short answers might reveal more of the unprompted writer.

Remember that an application should give a multi-dimensional picture of the applicant.  The short answers that you might think are trivial, actually add something to this portrait.

And if a college asks the question - “why are you applying to our college?” - please take this very seriously.  They are not looking for you simply to praise their school.  Neither are they looking for you to regurgitate information easily found on their website or publications.  So if you say “I want to attend X College because it’s ranked #3 in the nation for . . .” or “I want to go to your school because it’s only 20 minutes from Boston” or “X College is for me because it offers a choice of 38 majors” you will have failed the test.  Anyone can write those things.

They want to see that you have truly reflected on your choice.  In this way they may be able to tell the difference between a sincere applicant and one who wants to use them as a safety school or back-up.  If they have two applicants whose qualifications are very similar, but one applicant sounds sincere and the other sounds not fully interested, which applicant do you think they will choose?

 Have a question for Jane?  Search archives | Contact the College Counselor