 |
Do you love Insideschools.org? Want to help make it better?
We are searching for parents, students, teachers or others who would like to explore and answer questions about the redesigned Insideschools.org.
Commitment is approximately one hour with some users in the office, but the majority testing from home. Contact Catherine Man if interested. Please let her know how much experience you’ve had with Insideschools.
|
One final note before I sign off: even though OSEPO pulled an all-nighter earlier this week trying to nail down the scope of the pre-K admissions problems, it is still planning to mail out long-delayed middle school placement letters right about now. Here’s a space for parents of 5th graders to discuss the results of that process.
G&T folks, you’ll get your placement thread next week. Good luck to all!
|
In a week filled with budget cut showdowns, botched pre-K admissions letters, and anticipation of middle school and G&T placement decisions, I’m pretty sure I’m just about the last thing on your minds. But that won’t stop me from trying to insert myself there.
At the end of May last year, the Insideschools blog was still just an idea. A year later, its archive contains more than 525 posts(!) ranging from meeting coverage to analysis of articles and reports to help understanding the DOE’s confusing policy changes. In my three years at Insideschools, I’ve enjoyed nothing more than writing this blog and interacting with the parents, teachers, policy wonks, and school officials who read it.
Today is my last day at Insideschools. After today, I’ll be reading this blog, but I won’t be contributing to it. I’m confident that I’m leaving the blog in more-than-capable hands — Helen Zelon, who has contributed coverage of the budget cuts already, will post regularly through the summer, and you’ll soon see some other new names; let Insideschools know if you’d like to be one of them — but still, I will miss it.
When I see you around the city and the Internet, say hello. And until then, know that I am rooting for you all in this crazy, mixed-up school system.
|
Today’s tragic crane collapse on the Upper East Side, the latest in a series of construction accidents in city that’s experiencing a building boom, took place at the site of the new East Side Middle School, where developers tore down an old public school building to make way for a new condominium building that will also house a public school. The Times is reporting that the cab of a crane fell as many as 20 stories to the ground this morning, killing at least one person.
Groundbreaking for the new ESMS, a popular school currently located on York Avenue between 77th and 78th streets, happened last September. (View photos of the event.) The new, 34-story building, which will house an expanded ESMS as well as 118 condo units, was slated to be completed in 2011; it’s not clear how this accident will affect the timeline but I think we can hope that construction there and elsewhere in the city should not happen until we can be guaranteed it’s happening safely.
|
Earlier this week, Helen posted about “Chancellor Klein’s no good, very bad morning.” One commenter immediately noted the allusion to the classic children’s book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” by Judith Viorst, saying that she reads the book to her own son Alexander when he’s feeling grumpy. Recently, the Times’ City Room blog ran a long post about the best kids’ books that use New York City as a backdrop, such as “Eloise,” “Harriet the Spy,” and “The Cricket in Times Square.” Readers weighed in with their own suggestions and sent me, at least, running to the library.
As we all work on our summer reading lists, help fellow Insideschools Blog readers out: What books do your kids most enjoy?
|
Some of the soon-to-be pre-K parents commenting on this blog are working through their anger and frustration about the admissions problems by generating possible solutions for them. If the DOE aims to make things right for the families it shortchanged — and I believe that is the DOE’s intention — officials will likely need to think creatively. Perhaps they can use Bronx_Shrink’s proposal for inspiration:
I think there may be one way in which a fraction of the wrongfully rejected parents can be appeased. The city offers child care vouchers to low income families. If they are unable to correct this and place kids properly, according to priority, perhaps some families can be offered vouchers to be used in private day cares. Before the tomatoes start flying, I know this will not be the answer for most parents as they carefully chose schools that match their educational values. However, it might be good compensation for some other families to get them through another year of childcare costs.
Do you have a better plan? Post yours. Pie-in-the-sky ideas are welcome, but practical solutions are even more welcome.
|
Earlier this week, Leonie Haimson commented on a post about the budget showdown that “no one believes that $200 million is going to be cut centrally.” During this challenging week, I’ve really tried to give the DOE the benefit of the doubt, but all the evidence certainly does point that way. As Haimson noted over at the NYC Public School Parents blog, the budget the chancellor presented to the City Council on Tuesday reflected a $12 million central cut that will be achieved in large part by putting in place a hiring freeze at the DOE; it also reflected serious inconsistencies and underbudgeting that advocates have been noting since the budget was released several weeks ago.
After Council members and advocates demanded a closer accounting, the chancellor released a more detailed list of how he plans to free up the $200 million. Elizabeth Green at the Sun wrote yesterday that the list says the DOE plans to reduce the number of staff positions by 187 (which strikes me as unlikely to be achieved in one year through attrition), defer the introduction of a new social studies curriculum (testing related to a new science curriculum was also put off earlier this year), and stop paying for some of schools’ computer repair costs. Nearly 15 percent of the central cuts could affect schools directly, Green reported. And now today, the Post notes that “nearly half” of the proposed central cuts were achieved by lowering cost estimates for various products and services — probably by finding someone who can do what’s needed for even lower than the lowest bid, which can’t be good for actually getting the job done well.
My head is spinning. The only way I can see sense being made of the whole situation is if the mayor frees up enough money to eliminate budget cuts for the DOE and its schools.
|
I just heard from Andy Jacob at the DOE, who said he had explained many details about the nature of the pre-K admissions problems to reporters at the Times and the Post but that those details hadn’t made it into print. The Daily News had a hint of the details, but I didn’t see that article earlier this morning — there, Jacob described problems with sibling verification that may have led some parents not to have received acceptance letters when they should have.
What happened, Jacob told me, was that the DOE’s computers compared data for the older sibling claimed on the application with the data parents entered on the application. If the address in the attendance system for the older child didn’t match the address as it was entered from the application, the system treated the applicant as a non-sibling. But in some cases, Jacob said, the address-matching excluded children erroneously, sometimes because of a minor difference in the way the addresses were formulated (with a typo in the DOE’s attendance system, for example) and sometimes because families have moved since entering the school system.
Currently, OSEPO staff are finishing up looking at every single one of the applications of families who indicated they had a sibling already enrolled, Jacob said. He told me he anticipates that the number of families affected will be a “small minority” of the 9,000 families who indicated that they had a sibling in their school of choice, though the number will be “more than 4 or 5.” After the scope of the problem is clear, the DOE will decide how to handle the cases, he said, and families will be notified then if there was a mistake in the way their application was treated. “There are some cases where the problem was on our end. … When we hear about problems, we solve them,” he told me.
Jacob said there may also be families who believe they were erroneously denied a seat who actually completed the application incorrectly, perhaps by listing the school in which the sibling is already enrolled as something other than their first choice. (Sibling priority only works for your first-choice school.)
Jacob advised me that the very best thing parents who believe the address-matching issue may be the root of their rejection should hold tight while the DOE decides how to solve the problem. I know that will be hard to do, but I have faith that the DOE is committed to addressing the issues, even though it might not know yet exactly how to. If you just can’t wait, Jacob said the best number to call at OSEPO is 212-374-4948. That’s also the number you should call if you have other issues or if you still haven’t received a letter — though we have heard from one father who just received a letter this morning.
As always, we’ll keep you posted as we learn more, and please let us know what’s happening on your end.
|
Finally, today, the pre-K debacle has made it into the papers — where we learn that the DOE believes all the problems are parents’ fault. DOE spokesman Andy Jacob told the Times that the problems appear to have affected only families with siblings already enrolled in a school with a pre-K program. That means, of course, that the problems may be widespread, because those families make up 45 percent of the 20,000 families who applied for pre-K seats.
Jacob told the Times that DOE officials believe the data entry done in Pennsylvania is not the culprit, but that blame more likely rests with parents who made a “simple mistake” when filling out the form. To the Post, he said that “most complaints involved parents who wrongly believed they qualified for priority placement or whose application data contained errors.”
Some good news: Jacob told the Times, “We will find a way to solve the problems that do exist.” How magnanimous: They may not respect you or believe you’re capable of filling out a form, but at least they’ll make right when you screw up.
Please let us know when you start getting resolution to your problems — we hope it’s soon!
|
I had sort of thought that the folks who last autumn were talking about bringing a Hebrew-language charter school to New York City would have been dissuaded by the controversy surrounding the Khalil Gibran International Academy, but apparently they were not. Next week, representatives of the Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life plans to submit an application to the DOE and the state Board of Regents to open a charter school as early as 2009, according to a report in the Jewish Daily Forward.
The proposal will be modeled after Ben Gamla Charter in Florida, which ran into some trouble early in this school year because its Hebrew language curriculum contained religious references. Considering that doing damage control for Khalil Gibran proved costly and embarrassing for the DOE and that the controversy continues to this day, it should be interesting to see what kind of reception the Hebrew school’s advocates receive.
|
Sometime today the DOE put up new information about pre-K on the pre-K enrollment page. It contains a sprinkling of new information but no admission at all of widespread problems with the admissions process. And of course there’s no phone number at all for parents who have questions. (If we happen to find out a number that leads to a helpful, or at least friendly, person, we’ll post it right away — but we’re having about as much luck as you are getting through to OSEPO right now.)
Here’s how to appeal:
Is there an appeals process for pre-K?
There is an appeals process for a child whose address changes or for extenuating circumstances. Families who wish to submit an appeal must do so in writing to ES_Enrollment@schools.nyc.gov no later than June 13, 2008.
If you think your application was hopelessly botched (whether by the data entry dude in Pennsylvania or by OSEPO’s computer matching system), does this satisfy you? I didn’t think so.
|
The DOE hasn’t commented on the scope of problems with pre-K admissions letters — no matter that one Insideschools blog reader hypothesized that the problems are “HUGE” — but officials are saying they are investigating every complaint they receive. So if you believe your child was mistakenly denied a seat in a pre-K program, contact OSEPO, the central enrollment office, at 212-374-2363.
What’s not clear to me is whether any families have been offered seats at the Brooklyn schools that seem to have been affected. If they have, will the DOE be able to reverse erroneous rejections? Or will all of the seats that should have gone to in-zone siblings already be filled?
|
Last week, at the same time Chancellor Klein started his “classic divide and conquer” campaign to cut the budgets of high-performing schools, he also announced that he would be cutting $200 million from the DOE’s central budget. We’re starting to get a picture now of what programs and services will go the way of the $200 million. Helen reported that top schools will not receive annual quality reviews and that dozens of jobs will be cut centrally.
Today, we learn that the DOE is jettisoning its plan to screen all kindergarteners for “giftedness” this coming year. The plan has drawn mixed reception since it was announced last year as part of the standardization of G&T admission: anti-testing advocates opposed it as an expansion of the DOE’s already swollen testing program, while others, including some parents who commented on this blog while waiting for their G&T letters, saw it as a way to increase equity by finding gifted kids whose parents might not know to ask for testing.
What else do we know the DOE plans to cut from its central administration? Is the chancellor right that individual schools won’t suffer more because of the cuts there?
|
In keeping with its grand tradition of finding a long weekend during which to mail important letters to parents, the DOE let loose Pre-K admissions decisions at the end of last week. Already, the Insideschools forum is abuzz with discussion of the process. A couple of disappointed parents lament not getting into their top-choice programs or into any program at all.
Other parents describe what we can only hope are problems with the admissions process, the management of which was outsourced to an out-of-state provider. A couple of parents describe receiving rejection letters even though they live in the zone of a school with a large Pre-K program — and who have older children already enrolled in that school! (This year’s new rules, finalized midway through the application process, give siblings preference for admission over all other applicants.) Either there are far, far more zoned siblings applying for Pre-K than anyone could ever have imagined, or else the DOE has some cleaning up to do.
If you applied for Pre-K for the fall, we welcome more information about your letter — and we hope your news was good!
Update: A DOE spokesman wrote to me to clarify concerns about the admissions process being outsourced. Parents mailed their applications to Pennsylvania for data entry, he wrote, but the actual applicant-to-program matches were made in-house at OSEPO.
|
Were you at the beach on Sunday? (I hope you weren’t sitting around by your computer reading blogs!) If you were, you might have seen an airplane towing the message “Mayor Bloomberg, keep your promises to our schools.” The Keep the Promises Coalition was spreading the word about the budget cuts the schools are facing — cuts that Chancellor Klein recently rejiggered but not relieved. It seems unlikely that the mayor vacations on the city’s public beaches, but I suppose it was worth a shot, especially if the effort prompted city residents to call the coalition’s toll-free number to register complaints about the cuts.
I’d also bet that there weren’t many principals enjoying the beach this weekend — they were likely too busy figuring out what programs and services to cut for next year, since they only received their budgets late on Thursday.
This morning at 9:30, the education and finance committees of the City Council will be looking at the proposed operating budget for the city’s schools. (See the Insideschools calendar for details.) It should be a contentious debate — almost all of the council members have called on the mayor to restore funding to the schools, but he shows no signs of budging. I’m guessing we’ll hear council members offering suggestions of where the DOE could trim its fat, in ways that won’t affect individual schools. We’ll see how productive the debate turns out to be.
|
Parents have always known they are taking a risk when they put down a deposit at a private school while waiting to hear whether they’ve been accepted at their preferred public schools. But I didn’t know until recently that they can be risking as much as a year’s tuition — which can total as much as $20,000 or more. A story in the Times today describes a family who has been paying all year for a seat at the Little Red Schoolhouse that their daughter doesn’t occupy, because she got into a citywide gifted program in June. By the time they notified Little Red, they had passed the deadline to pull out without having to pay the full year’s tuition. Today on Urban Baby, users are vilifying the family for waiting so long to let LREI know, but earlier this week, readers there were worrying about the same thing happening to them.
Whether private schools would actually plan around the public school schedule if the DOE had a regular schedule is up for speculation, but a spokeswoman for an independent schools organization made a great point when she said in the Times, “Unfortunately, it’s impossible to collaborate on the timing with the public schools when the dates change every year.” Of course, the DOE’s changing schedules are problematic for lots of families, not just those considering private school.
I do question how familiar Susan Dominus, the story’s author, is with the public schools in the Bloomberg-Klein era. She writes, “It would have been nice, from [the parents’] point of view, if Little Red, which ultimately forgave about $6,000 of the $26,000 tuition, ran itself a little bit less like a competitive business; but it would also have helped if New York’s public school system reliably ran itself more like one.” Has she not heard that schools are businesses and their principals are all CEOs?
|
As Helen noted yesterday, Chancellor Klein seems to have come up with a formula for reallocating school budgets that penalizes large, successful schools — and that’s the story the papers ran with today. Klein appears to have come up with the gambit to rile up middle-class families — and voters — to support his bid to have the state loosen restrictions placed on school funding by the new Contract for Excellence requirement, which was in turn prompted in part by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. That suit, of course, aimed to equalize funding among schools by giving more money to lower-performing schools with a high proportion of needy students. Klein’s plan does seem to move toward equalization — but by taking away from schools that are less needy. And he plans to heighten class tensions in the process. Thanks, Chancellor Klein!
UPDATE: A reader notes: “There is a rally this afternoon to protest the budget cuts in front of the location where Chancellor Klein is meeting with principals to announce these cuts: The HS of Fashion Industries at 225 W. 24th Street in Manhattan between 7th and 8th Ave at 5 p.m.” I can’t be there, but can someone else who is going fill us in on what happens?
|
So after a State Supreme Court judge voided the city’s deal to give 20 private schools exclusive rights to the playing fields at Randalls Island, you’d think the city would stop work on the project, right? You’d be wrong. Work has continued unabated for the last four months, and now Curbed reports that the project has “taken a sharp left turn into Bizarro World“: Yesterday, the same judge who voided the deal said the continued construction was just fine.
The bottom line may be that it won’t be legal for the city to take the $45 million promised by the private schools to pay for the playing fields. So as parent advocates and neighborhood activists wanted, the private schools won’t get exclusive use of the fields — but at the same time, someone else will have to foot the bill. And as we know, there’s not exactly millions of dollars sitting around right now earmarked for the benefit of public school children. I’m sure there are plenty of readers who understand the situation better than I do — what should we expect to see when the first playing fields open, perhaps as early as this fall?
|
Most of the 8th graders at IS 318 in the Bronx boycotted a practice social studies test last week, the Daily News reports. They complain that they’ve been taking tests all year, many of which are simply practice or diagnostic tests ostensibly designed to prepare them for the real thing, instead of spending time learning from their teachers. Their social studies teacher has been removed from the classroom and may lose his job over the affair, even though he and students say he never told them to hand in anti-testing petitions along with their blank tests.
From the answers the students gave to the Daily News reporter, it sounds like they’ve had quality instruction in civics and social studies at IS 318. I’d wager that their tests wouldn’t reflect their nuanced understanding of capitalism, authoritarianism, and children’s (lack of) rights:
“We’ve had a whole bunch of these diagnostic tests all year,” Tatiana Nelson, 13, one of the protest leaders, said Tuesday outside the school. “They don’t even count toward our grades. The school system’s just treating us like test dummies for the companies that make the exams.” …”They’re saying Mr. Avella made us do this,” said Johnny Cruz, 15, another boycott leader. “They don’t think we have brains of our own, like we’re robots. We students wanted to make this statement. The school is oppressing us too much with all these tests.” …
“Now they’ve taken away the teacher we love only a few weeks before our real state exam for social studies,” Tatiana Nelson said. “How does that help us?”
|
Today’s Sun has a comprehensive overview of where the city’s school budgets now stand — and it’s possible, writes Elizabeth Green, that one reason principals didn’t receive their school budgets last week as scheduled is that the mayor plans to restore some funding to schools. That’s the hope, at least, of principals and school advocates who want to see an upside to a delay that follows a year of financial uncertainty. Advocates have been relentless in pressuring the mayor and chancellor to restore school funding, planning rallies in every borough, airing TV and radio ads, and getting local Community Education Councils to pass resolutions opposing the cuts.
And all but just a few City Council members signed a resolution opposing the budget cuts; the Council must approve the proposed budget before it is adopted. This morning, the council’s education and finance committees are discussing the city’s capital school budget. Next week, the council takes on the operating budget. By then, and as early as this afternoon, we should see the mayor or the chancellor address the financial picture the schools are facing. I predict they’ve gotten the message that it won’t be acceptable for them to tell principals and parents again that budget cuts will have “no impact whatsoever.”
|
NYC Public School Parents is hosting a copy of the DOE’s much-anticipated “Blueprint for District 2 Enrollment and Capacity.” At a recent meeting about overcrowding in District 2, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said the fact that such a document was on its way was one “sign of progress” in reducing overcrowding in the district’s schools — but I wonder whether he still feels that way, having read what the DOE proposes in the preliminary planning document.
“We know that an appropriate plan for District 2’s elementary schools will require not only new construction but also enrollment adjustments and efficient use of current facilities,” DOE officials write. Contrasted with district residents’ thoughtful identification of existing space that could be used for schools, the proposal is thin on ideas for new construction, describing only the plan, announced recently, to convert part of one Greenwich Village building into a 600-student elementary school and one other new idea for construction, in Kips Bay. (Two elementary schools are already planned to open in Lower Manhattan in 2010, and a middle school expansion project is also underway on the Upper East Side.)
While the DOE says it is planning to add nearly 3,000 new seats in elementary and middle schools in District 2, it also asks for two unpopular commitments from District 2 officials and schools. First, it calls for a reduction in out-of-district enrollment in some of Manhattan’s most popular schools, a reduction that is already underway thanks to the DOE’s own “proactive oversight” of admissions and one that is sure to undermine schools’ efforts to maintain diversity in some of the wealthiest zip codes in the city. The DOE also calls for a rezoning of the entire district to account for new schools and resolve some current sticky issues, such as the zone-sharing between PS 3 and PS 41 in Greenwich Village and the lack of a zoned school for children in the old PS 151 zone on the Upper East Side. And it suggests that 5th graders at overcrowded elementary schools in Lower Manhattan be bused to buildings more than a mile away, an option that is sure to please parents who secured apartments with the neighborhood schools in mind.
The letter is packed with tidbits about what families in District 2 (and beyond) might expect as the DOE continues to centralize admissions procedures. It’s definitely worth a look. And if you’re in District 2, you can respond to your local community board, the Manhattan Borough President’s office, or by taking an online survey about school overcrowding. And if you’re in other parts of the city — perhaps you’re in South Brooklyn, where anti-overcrowding momentum appears to be mounting — you might start thinking now about what the DOE can, and should not, do to relieve overcrowding in your area.
|
Can you imagine what a $52 million capital improvement could do for the increasingly overcrowded Beach Channel High School? Keep imagining — the $52 million is going to soundproof the building against the noise from nearby JFK airport.
|
Kids these days spend more and more time inside their utilitarian public school buildings, and as a result they’re alienated from nature and the creativity nature inspires, writes Alison Arieff in a recent Times column. “What if we looked beyond the notion of schools as institutions (like jails, banks, courthouses) and thought about them more as laboratories for creativity, exploration and innovation?” she asks.
Arieff suggests that one way to accomplish this might be by building “green” schools (or renovating existing buildings in environmentally sustainable ways) so that classrooms are integrated with the natural world around them. In New York City, that’s not as easily accomplished as it might be elsewhere, especially given the glacier-like pace of school construction here. But schools in New York could do a lot more to release kids into the “wild” of the city, where rather than explore forests and streams they might explore the world’s very best museums, theaters, and parks.
|
Parents are reporting that they’ve started hearing back from citywide middle schools. They’ve heard — as have we at Insideschools — that districts will be letting students know where they’ve been accepted by the end of this month. Does anyone have any other information to share? Good luck to all!
|
In a couple of hours, Chancellor Joel Klein will give the Class Day address at Columbia; he graduated from the school in 1967. Lots of seniors were nonplussed by the choice, Columbia’s student newspaper reported last month. Barnard’s got Klein’s boss, Mayor Bloomberg. But hey, boring speeches mean more time for blowing up beach balls and stealing bases, right?
|
Mayor Bloomberg has got to be feeling the pressure to restore education funds to the city’s budget. On Wednesday, parents gathered at City Hall to urge City Council members to vote down the proposed budget. This morning, State Assembly leader Sheldon Silver presented the mayor with an assembly resolution asking him to restore school funding. Anti-cut rallies are scheduled for Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx in the next week. (See the Insideschools calendar for details about dates and locations.) And the Keep the Promises Coalition has just launched a new TV spot urging New Yorkers to call 1-800-961-6198 to tell the mayor to fund the schools.
Some kind of changes may be brewing. Patrick Sullivan reported last night on the NYC Public School Parents blog that the DOE has delayed the Panel for Education Policy’s vote on the executive budget, originally scheduled for Monday, saying that it is working on reducing the impact of cuts to schools. Of course, it could be that the DOE needs time to fix serious inconsistencies in the proposed budget — Eduwonkette’s noted one and it’s not hard to find others.
|
From the Sun comes the news that the Brooklyn Prospect Charter School, which had its application denied last year, is now cleared to open in District 15 in 2009. The school will open with grade 6 and will eventually serve students in grades 6-12. Founders says Brooklyn Prospect will offer the rigorous International Baccalaureate program as part of the school’s mission of giving students “the skills, knowledge, and habits of mind necessary for success in higher education, the workplace, and life in the twenty-first century.” Parents of current 4th graders can contact the school now for more information; as at all charters, admissions will be done by lottery, applications for which will be due in April 2009, and residents of District 15 will have priority for admission.
|
Eduwonkette’s been taking a close look at the city’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 (pdf)— and she reports today that the $8,287,282 slated for the Division of Assessment and Accountability includes $7,789,623 for 18 staff positions, or $432,757 per position. Eduwonkette uses these figures to point to the DOE’s “selective attention to budgeting issues.” But I’d prefer to look on the bright side — the money earmarked for DAA isn’t going up next year. Not getting a raise is like a cut, right?
|
If you don’t believe already that the economy is tanking, here’s proof: the number of college students applying to join Teach for America increased by 37 percent this year. Nearly 25,000 graduating seniors applied for 3,700 spots, making TFA more selective than all but the most elite colleges — though not as selective as some of New York City’s most highly coveted high schools. Let’s hope the kids who didn’t make the cut — based on grades, essays, and an interview — applied to graduate school as a backup plan. About 500 of those TFA has accepted will make their way to one of the city’s classrooms by this fall, where they will fill high-need positions teaching math, science, and special education, among other subjects.
|
School officials in Dallas have started giving GPS devices to kids who regularly have trouble making it to school — so they can’t pass off illegitimate excuses when they’re truant. The GPS devices appear to be improving attendance for these students, and one expert notes in the Times article on the subject, “It’s far better than locking a kid up” — not to mention less expensive, despite paying for a full-time case manager to check in on students.
Still, some in Texas have complained about the tracking systems, saying the ankle bracelets used in an earlier iteration of the Dallas experiment, and currently used in a similar program in another Texas city, are reminiscent of slave chains. I, too, am uncomfortable with a program that eases kids to the indignities of being monitored electronically. On the other hand, perhaps if students at Brooklyn’s Boys and Girls High School were part of a program like the one in Dallas, they would make it to school in time for the starting bell, after which, according to the Post, students complain they are sometimes barred from admission. (Boys and Girls is the subject of an ongoing lawsuit over illegal pushouts filed in 2005 by Advocates for Children, Insideschools’ parent organization.)
|
The DOE has responded to the frustration voiced by parents who had their rising kindergarteners screened for G&T eligibility, only to find that their district programs start in 1st grade. This week, parents of kids who scored at the 90th percentile or higher received a letter saying, “After careful consideration, we are pleased to inform you that your child will not have to retest next year and will be eligible for a first grade seat in G&T program in your distict for the 2009-10 school year.” It’s time to give credit where credit’s due — the DOE listened to parents and responded fairly and appropriately. Queens parents, you were particularly vocal on this subject — are you satisfied with the DOE’s response?
|
Every year, teenagers and their parents ask us at Insideschools how to find summer jobs. In fact, Judy recently answered a question about what kinds of work a 14-year-old might look for. An internship can often be a meaningful way to spend the summer both learning and working. And if your child is set on landing a paying job for the summer, the city can help.
Until May 16, kids can submit applications for the city’s Summer Youth Employment Program, which places young adults ages 14-21 in positions at community organizations, city agencies, and local businesses. The DOE’s Office of Special Education Initiatives will help teens with disabilities find jobs as well; to apply, complete the regular SYEP application and mail it by May 16 to John McParland, OSESI Placement and Referral Center, 145 Stanton Street, Room 223, New York, NY 10006.
|
I’ve been tossing around this idea for a while now as I’ve been finishing up the final classes of my senior year. It’s a little out there, so please stay with me till the end.
The test prep culture in our schools is bad and widespread. It detracts from learning. It pervades all of our classes. It impedes good relationships between students and teachers. How do we rid ourselves of this beast? Well, my answer — and I know it is kind of out there — is this: Legitimize it!
What do you mean, Seth? That’s ridiculous! Why would we legitimize something that we want to get rid of?
What I am suggesting here is that we legitimize testing by recognizing that for primary and secondary education students it is important to know how to take a test and how to take it well.
Standardized tests in 4th and 7th grade are sometimes the only way to distinguish among such a large and diverse field of applicants in middle and high school admissions. And the SAT and ACT tests one of the current standards for college admissions (except at a couple of amazing liberal arts schools that have made the SAT optional). And right now, the social divide between people with college educations and those without is growing, and in today’s world, you’re going to have to take some tests in order to get that seemingly magical degree.
Thus, the ability to take a test is quite a valuable one. So why not create a class to teach that skill?
Testing Class, as I will call it, by its very nature would be a process- (instead of content-) based learning class, something we need more of in our schools. It would teach students how to approach many problems and issues. It would also be more helpful in preparing them for standardized tests, by focusing on specific skills rather than today’s tactic of vaguely tying it into other subjects, which just confuses students as to what they’re supposed to be concentrating on. This aspect of the class could also hopefully improve equality by giving students who can’t afford pricey test prep services these helpful skills.
But the most important part of Testing Class will be that it will alleviate the need for test prep in academic subjects. Academic teachers will then be able to focus more on other skills, such as writing, approaching a document, understanding complex conceptual ideas, and taking on creative projects.
Just an idea…
|
If so, you might want to visit the website of Onderwijs Consumentem Organisatie, or the Education Consumers’ Organization of Amsterdam. Schools are very different in the Netherlands — there, the government supports private and parochial schools — but parents aren’t. There, just as they do here, parents want to find the best schools for their children and help make those schools excellent. For the last two years, representatives of OCO have visited Insideschools to share their experiences running a similar organization, and this year, the two sites created a formal relationship that has been recognized by Amsterdam’s alderman for education. (That’s Insideschools director Pam Wheaton signing on as a partner with OCO’s Han van Gelder in the picture above.) We’ve already gotten several good ideas from the folks at OCO — but we probably won’t be buying Insideschools-branded bikes to ride to school visits!
|
A new iteration of Urban Baby launched yesterday. At first, the new site had no schools board, but after hours of posts from frustrated parents, NY Schools became an option by which to “filter” all posts — but using that option doesn’t recreate the beloved schools board of Urban Baby past. Naturally, UB users aren’t happy. I’m with the user who says, “Honestly, maybe we should just defect to insideschools.” We’ve got message boards (and, of course, this blog) where parents can talk about schools. And we don’t have any plans to sell out to CNet!
|
Popular, successful elementary schools are overcrowded because too many families want to attend them. Not really news, is it? It is when kids start getting put on waiting lists at neighborhood schools because the city hasn’t planned for the influx of kids living in new apartment buildings in those neighborhoods.
That’s the story in several school zones in District 2 and elsewhere, according to an article in today’s Times, which focuses largely on downtown
It was also the subject of a hearing last night in
Mayoral control of schools should allow the mayor to require major developers to fund school creation; since I moved to the city, I’ve been puzzled as to why this is not so. It seems like a total no-brainer, not something that should require policy reports and public hearings and families being locked out of their zoned schools to make happen.
|
Good news for the subject of Insideschools’ most recent “Ask the College Counselor” column, who was waitlisted by his top three schools: top colleges this year are digging further down onto their waitlists than they have in recent years, which could start a chain reaction that will benefit waitlisted applicants everywhere, the Times reports today.
Do you have a question for the college counselor? Ask her.
|
It’s not the lack of gym classes in schools — that was earlier this week (and last month). Perhaps it’s the changes to school lunches being made because of rising food prices?
“From such healthy staples as fresh spinach to more haute cuisine like cornmeal-encrusted fish and Cuban roast pork, dishes are getting 86′d from school menus as officials scramble to maintain the same quality with cheaper options,” the Post reported recently about food in the city’s schools.
As we know, of course, canned fruits and vegetables and “imitation” foods like fish sticks and chicken nuggets aren’t at all in the same league as fresh spinach and fish in terms of quality. But they do give kids all the calories they would need if ever they were given the opportunity to use them in a game of kickball or tag. (Or if they were allowed to bike to school; parents in England are stopping their kids from riding to school because of safety concerns. Are parents here, with their fear of “free-range kids,” making similar rules?)
|
Today Sam Freedman reprises his jeremiad from earlier this year about what happens to schools when large high schools near them begin to phase out. The only thing that’s really different in today’s story is the schools involved: Instead of Beach Channel accommodating students zoned for Far Rockaway, to apparently disastrous results, now its kids who would who have gone to Brooklyn’s Lafayette flooding into the unconventional, highly rated John Dewey High School. Freedman writes:
Faculty members, students and administrators at Dewey say that the students coming from Lafayette are academically deficient, although Education Department statistics show that the current crop of ninth graders performed essentially similarly to previous cohorts on the citywide reading test. Still, the perception at Dewey is that Lafayette students did not choose Dewey for its quality, but landed there by default because they did not qualify for any of the Lafayette building’s mini-schools. With the overcrowding, Dewey students and staff members say, in many periods of the day there are several hundred students with no assigned room, often roaming the halls. A round of budget cuts this year sharply reduced staffing of the “resource centers.” …The nadir for Dewey came in March, when a student — not newly admitted from Lafayette — was spotted by classmates and a teacher handling a gun and the building was put under police lockdown for several hours. Though the weapon was never located and no charges were ever brought against the student, a heightened sense of disruption continues.
Reading between the lines, it seems possible that administrators and students at Dewey are using Lafayette-zoned kids as scapegoats for trouble that’s not always caused by them and that the problem is just as much a school program that is inflexible in the face of crowding pressures as it is the particular kids who have started enrolling.
But the DOE’s response is truly ridiculous: to encourage more overcrowding and a wholesale abandonment of the progressive scheduling that has made Dewey special. Garth Harries told Freedman bringing enrollment down at Dewey is “absolutely a priority” — but implied that the way the DOE plans to execute that goal is by waiting for Lafayette’s small schools to become attractive and large enough to draw more kids.
Even worse, Harries noted, “There are many schools that are over capacity, and more over capacity than Dewey, and they can program their students so everyone has a place to be,” he said. “I would be surprised that a school that has just 118 percent utilization has that many students unprogrammed.” In other words, Dewey isn’t that overcrowded — why can’t it just stuff more kids into its classes? When Insideschools visited in January 2007, school officials told us classes range in size from 28 to 34 students. It doesn’t sound like there’s much wiggle room in classes that large.
One other similarity between Freedman’s story on Beach Channel and this one about Dewey: the sad fact that some at those schools think the pressure they’re under is the DOE’s way to destroy formerly successful large high schools. True or not, how can you teach or learn when that’s what you’re led to believe?
|
Yesterday, Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum’s office released a report on the state of physical education in the city’s schools, concluding what we already know: schools stink at making sure kids get physical activity. But the facts, at least according to the Public Advocate’s office, are worse than I imagined. Only 4 percent of 3rd graders get gym daily as required by the state; just 31 percent of middle schools give kids enough P.E. time; and more than half of all middle schools have no sports teams at all. Given the scope of its own failure, it’s no wonder the DOE wants to hand off responsibility for fitness to families!
|
Did you catch the 4,500-word story about Debbie Almontaser in the Times last week? If you did, were you as puzzled as I was about why the story was running now? The initial brouhaha over the Khalil Gibran International Academy appears, finally, to have died down; Almontaser’s lawsuit alleging unfair treatment when she was pressured to resign as principal was rejected; and the school seems to be improving, an observation that’s buried at the end of the Times piece. To me and others I’ve talked to, the piece read like something the paper had been sitting on until Almontaser surprised the author by offering to go on the record. But given that the school has encountered hostility from its new home, PS 287, stirring up controversial issues, particularly ones that by all accounts, including the Times’ own, are now moot, feels like irresponsible journalism to me.
|
It’s getting easier to be a helicopter parent, according to an article in Sunday’s Times about the rise of online data systems that allow parents to track their kids’ school performance in real time.
Using programs such as ParentConnect and Edline, parents in some school districts can log on to see whether their kids cut class, aced a test, or failed to hand in a homework assignment that day. The programs, which are used in thousands of school districts nationwide, recalculate student averages with each new data point entered, making grade-tracking akin to, as one parent notes in the article, tracking the stock market. School officials say the programs build connections between home and school and allow busy parents to be involved in their kids’ lives.
Many students seem to like the fact that the programs let them monitor their own progress and check their teachers’ work. But they don’t love letting their parents in on their daily lives and decisions. And for good reason — parents in the article admit getting out of hand, checking obsessively and getting too involved in their kids’ schoolwork.
I don’t think any of these programs are being used in New York City schools, at least not to any sizable degree. But the DOE did say two years ago when it first unveiled the plan to require interim assessments multiple times a year that “parents will be able to log into a website that will have up-to-date information about their child and their school.” I don’t think this component of the plan has come to fruition — but in a city where data, not parents and children, come first, perhaps it’s on it’s way.
If a computer program like this existed in your child’s school, would you use it?
|
Last week, the mayor released the city’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Calling the numbers describing the city’s fiscal situation “scary,” Mayor Bloomberg preserved the sizable cuts slated for the schools. Education advocates have only until June, when the budget will be finalized, to reverse the cuts — so they have ramped up the intensity of the Keep the Promises Coalition, originally launched in February when the cuts were first announced.
The net amount the public schools are gaining, by Mr. Bloomberg’s tally, does not account for losses the education department faced during this fiscal year and projected losses already tabulated into next year’s budget. …
Comparing the budget first implemented last year to this executive budget, the Department of Education’s net change is a modest gain of about $56 million.
Considering that the cost of many programs grows larger every year — teacher salaries, slated to see a 5% raise this month, are a prime example — that increase will probably not be enough to spare the public schools from having to cut some programs and services.
What programs and services might principals cut? If this year is any guide, next year we can expect to see reductions in tutoring programs, after school activities, supplies purchased, and more.
|
In case you haven’t seen, we’ve put up a fairly comprehensive FAQ about G&T scores over on the G&T homepage. One important piece of information: the DOE has extended the application deadline for eligible students to May 14.
The extension gives families who originally received applications with mistakes a chance to think about their revised applications, which the DOE spent a pretty penny overnighting to them earlier this week. Of course, the five-day extension also means it may take applicants a little while longer in “early June” to find out where they’ve been placed.
The Post and the Daily News today have stories about families in Staten Island and parts of Queens and the Bronx who feel cheated: their rising kindergarteners met the cutoff for G&T eligibility but their districts have no programs to accommodate them. Instead, they’ll have to test again next year for entrance to G&T programs that start in 1st grade. These parents’ frustration is totally understandable, but I do want to point out that the DOE made it clear through the whole process that entry grades to G&T programs would not change for next year. As always, the DOE could communicate with parents better, but on this count it made a sincere effort, sending reminder letters to families in those districts after they received their score reports, and maintained a straight story. Of course, even a straight story from the DOE doesn’t make things too much easier for parents who feel shut out.
One final note: We know all of the G&T program options in many districts. But if you qualified in districts 4, 7-12, 16-21, 23-24, or 26-31, please tell us what schools will be hosting G&T programs next year!
UPDATE: Thanks for sending in the lists for districts 11, 20, 24, 26, and 28. We’re still looking for 4, 8-10, 12, 17-19, 27, and 29-31.
|
What has cost the DOE as much as ARIS in the last couple of years? Teachers who aren’t working, according to a report being released today by the New Teacher Project, a non-profit organization that helps school districts find and train new teachers.
The report, titled “Mutual Benefits: New York City’s Shift to Mutual Consent in Teacher Hiring,” takes a look at the effects of the 2005 UFT-DOE contract, which ended the practice by which older teachers could “bump” younger teachers from their schools and instituted a system where teachers who are “excessed,” or released from their positions at schools, continue to earn tenure and be paid while they apply for new positions — or not. The report concludes that the practice of “mutual consent” has resulted in teachers being happier with their positions but that the growing pool of excessed teachers is becoming a financial burden on the system. Half of the 600 teachers who were excessed in 2006 and early 2007 who did not find a new position did not apply for any jobs through the DOE’s online hiring system, according to the report, to the tune of $81 million by the end of this school year.
Many of the report’s findings are likely verifiable, but it’s important to note that the New Teacher Project has an organizational interest in making sure there are positions for new teachers and funds free to pay them — it runs the city’s Teaching Fellows program. Evaluated in this context, the report’s central recommendation — that excessed teachers be removed from the payroll after a “reasonable period” and allowed “for a certain number of years” to be able to return to a teaching position at the same salary and seniority level — reads like opportunism, not thoughtful education policy. And it makes Mayor Bloomberg’s use of the report as a reason to reopen contract negotiations with the UFT positively inexcusable; he is planning to seek permission to remove from city payroll teachers who have gone without a job for 12 months.
The Times notes that Chancellor Klein has characterized most teachers in the reserve pool as undesirable or unwilling to look for work. We don’t know exactly how many of the non-working excessed teachers fit that bill. But we do know that with budget cuts making it financially stressful for schools to maintain experienced teaching staffs, principals must make hard choices to be able to afford to hire senior teachers. And with a cadre of first-year teachers always at the ready (thanks in part to the New Teacher Project), the incentives to make those choices are slim. That’s why the UFT earlier this month filed an age discrimination lawsuit against the DOE. In times like this, senior teachers need more protections, not a new rule that removes them from the system so long as schools can get along without them.
And if you’re worried about unqualified teachers keeping their jobs, don’t be — the Teacher Performance Unit is on the job.
|
Through their anxiety — a few parents said the experience of testing and waiting … and waiting may land them in therapy — many parents left sane, thoughtful comments on this weekend’s post about G&T admissions. Here’s a sampling:
From parents whose perspective returned not too long after receiving (or not receiving) their envelopes:
Congratulations to all of these kids on such an outstanding job. I do not believe the test was made child-friendly. The test administrator was a stranger, and I do not believe that the questions would be repeated more than once. (think about that.) I believe it was a difficult test, so if your child passes, they really gave it their best and if not in the 90%, that child is still bright just to sit there to attempt that test. Good luck parents!!
Resolved myself to thinking that we aren’t in and made my peace with it. It’s a beautiful day and I’m going to go and spend time with my beautiful, intelligent daughter and enjoy her for who she is not what she scores on a test.
And from parents who rightly have a whole new set of anxieties, despite their children’s high scores:
I am only willing to consider one of the G&T schools in our district but would really prefer one of the citywide schools. I don’t know how realistic our chances are for getting into a citywide school since (as ridiculous as it sounds) my DD only scored in the 98%tile.I am in district 25, my daughter is entering kindergarten and scored in the 98th percentile. I want to make a united front on the fact that there are no new “K” programs in our district. … Let’s get as many people on board with this and make an aggressive, united move to change this system which is failing our children.
From parents with radical notions about the DOE:
Don’t get me wrong - as the parent of a public schooler as well as a teacher in district three, I am no fan of the DOE. But in this case, they are clearly looking to improve schools for the greatest number of children, rather than the select few. … Here’s a radical notion, what if, regardless of a child’s score all of us as parents made a commitment to improving our local schools? Now that would be radical…..I wouldn’t be bashing DOE all that much. They are under tremendous pressure to do something, and I think the fact that the testing is open now to the whole city as opposed to those who were willing to spend enormous amount of money on private psychologists who tested for Anderson and Hunter is a great leap forward. It wasn’t exactly a smooth operation, and there will be always tons of people who are very unhappy. I think the thought process and the intentions of Board of Ed were good.
And from parent Chris Johnson, who understands how hard it is to keep up with what’s going on at the DOE:
I am in Egypt and just spoke with my wife and our daughter apparently is 90%+ - she will fax me the letter. NOTE: Thank you InsideSchools for providing us parents with such a useful forum. I am sending another contribution and encourage others to do the same. (InsideSchools is a non-profit organization that needs every contribution, no matter how small.)
If you, like Chris, want to help Insideschools be able to continue to provide this kind of forum, here’s how to make a tax-deductible donation. Thank you!
|
Most of the folks who could have answered your questions were out of their offices on Friday, but I am working on getting responses and as soon as I do I will share them with you. Until I can find out more, here’s a roundup of what we already know, thanks in great part to your comments.
Where will district G&T programs be housed?
In District 1: PS 19 and PS 110
In District 2: PS 11, 77, 111, 116, 124, 126, and 130
In District 3: PS 9, 145, 163, 166, 185, and 191
In District 5: PS 129 and PS 154
In District 6: PS 98 and PS 153
In District 7: None
In District 11: PS 121 and PS 153
In District 13: PS 3, 9, 20, and 282
In District 14: PS 132
In District 15: PS 1, 10, 32, 38, and 230
In District 16: None
In District 18: PS 114, 115, 208, 276, 279
In District 20: PS 102, 104, 176, 185, 204, and 229
In District 22: PS 52, 152, 193, 195, 206, 207, 217, 222, 236, 277, and 312
In District 23: None
In District 24: PS 16, 91
In District 25: PS 21, 32, 165, and 209
In District 26: PS 18, 115, 188, and 202
In District 28: PS 101, 117, 144, 174
|
It’s the middle of school vacation week, which means it’s the perfect time for the DOE to send out important letters — letters that some Insideschools readers consider potentially life-altering. Did you get your G&T score notification letter today?
We’d love to see a copy of the letter, if you can scan and email it to us. Thanks and relax!
| Support Insideschools.org! |
| Sort posts by: |
Powered by WordPress
Subscribe to 
