Just over a year ago, I wrote my first blog post for Insideschools. Now, as the school year’s drawn to a close, it’s time for me to say “thank you” to all who have written in, commented, and asked good questions; all who have challenged our reporting and made it stronger; all who have shared their stories, and their children’s stories, with readers across New York City. I’d especially like to thank the stalwart guest contributors who’ve helped to make Insideschools.org the rich and varied parent resource it is — and whose independent voices and heartfelt contributions made my job that much easier. We all hope the work has been useful to you.

Insideschools will continue to keep readers apprised of news in the city’s schools, even as it’s my turn, now, to express my sincere thanks for the opportunity to have served the site and its community.  It’s been a pleasure, and I’m sorry to see it end.

What I wrote last June remains entirely true today: “Thanks to all for their thoughts, inspirations, frustrations and wee-hours obsessions — for the willingness to take that leap of faith, and connect.”

Here’s to summer — and to brighter days ahead.

In early June, Insideschools and GothamSchools, among other outlets, reported the nomination of Garth Harries as Assistant Superintendent of New Haven, CT, schools. Harries built a tough reputation as a “systems guy,” according to Department of Education spokesperson David Cantor, as portfolio chief at the DOE, when he oversaw the closure of dozens of city schools. Earlier this year, he was given the task of reviewing special education services despite a lack of personal experience in special education.

When the New Haven announcement was made, Harries was expected to serve in New York through the end of the month — that would be today — and to release recommendations of his special education review before he left Tweed.

It’s the end of June. We’ve asked Tweed for Harries’ recommendations, and whether today is his last day at work. So far, no one’s saying. Any wonder that the special education community feels marginalized and overlooked?

This morning at 11 am, a coalition of students, civic leaders and advocacy groups plan to release a ‘white paper’ and report card on the incidence of bullying and bias-based harassment in the city’s schools. Student leaders from the Sikh Coalition and other organizations will speak, as will representatives of the New York Civil Liberties Union and the New York City Bar Association’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Committee, which collaborated on the project, and City Council members Robert Jackson and John Liu.

The report card asks whether the Department of Education has made sufficient progress implementing the anti-bullying Chancellor’s Regulation (number A-832), announced by the Mayor and the Chancellor in September 2008. More than 1,100 students and teachers contributed to the report-card assessment. Notably, three of every four New York City middle- and high-school students report bullying in their schools.

This afternoon at 4:30, vocal opponents of mayoral control plan to celebrate its demise, also at Tweed. Event organizers say they’ll serve eviction papers at midnight to oust Chancellor Klein and his staffers; DOE spokesman David Cantor denounced the proposed gathering as “tribal” in an email response. Of course, everything depends on whether Albany legislators actually manage to meet – forced to do so by a judge’s order — and hinges on new Democratic leader John Sampson’s desire to spend more time evaluating mayoral control.

The New York State Senate may be scheduled to reconvene at 3 pm today, but if recent experience is any guide, there’s no certainty that actual work will get done on behalf of the State’s citizens. Most pressing for many New York City residents, of course, is the law that maintains mayoral control of the schools, set to expire at midnight tomorrow, June 30.

Covered extensively in the Times, Post, News and at Gotham Schools, Gotham Gazette, and other local media, the mayoral control fight has taken on the tinge of French farce: How long can the public bickering and back-room wheeling-dealing continue? How many leaders and activists can line up for, and against, the mayor’s control of the schools? Can New York City go “Soviet,” to quote the Mayor, if the law’s not renewed? And — we hesitate to ask aloud — what about the kids?

Pro- and anti-control factions rallied and vented yesterday in Harlem. Will all the politics and posturing make a difference? Will Albany legislators wake up today and decide their duties outweigh their power struggles? Will New York’s statehouse denizens cease to be a laughing-stock and step up to their responsibilities?

With less than two days to go, the answers are anyone’s guess. The conflict is red meat for the local press, local pols, and pundits and activists on all sides. We still want to know, what about the city’s kids?

Principal Brian Culot of the Anderson School, one of Manhattan’s three citywide gifted and talented schools, has announced his resignation as principal, effective this August. In a letter to the Anderson community, Culot explained that he’s taken a position closer to his home, to permit him to spend more time with his family. He acknowledges that his departure, at a time of Anderson’s transition, relocation, and growth, comes at a challenging moment in the life of the school.

Additionally, Principal Jacqui Getz of PS 87 on the Upper West Side announced her resignation. Rumors are that Getz will assume leadership of a Manhattan charter school this fall; as of this morning, Getz would not respond to specific questions about her next position. An interim acting principal has yet to be announced.

In last week’s poll we learned that people use both electronic and human resources to get insights into their schools and community. About a third of respondents to last week’s poll turn to the Department of Education’s website;  the same number  rely on friends, neighbors, teachers, and other school personnel. Internet resources like parent listservs and education-media sites serve about 10 percent and 16 percent of responders, respectively.

Today is report-card day at schools citywide — and it’s your turn to grade your child’s school experience this year. Better yet, ask your child!

Earlier this week, departing UFT head Randi Weingarten negotiated a contract that will allow the  city’s teachers to start their school year after Labor Day.  Previously, teachers reported to work for  two prep days before the holiday, for professional development, and to get organized for the coming school year, a concession that was part of the 2005 teachers contract.

On the heels of that gain for teachers,  the Principal’s Union protested, asking (understandably) how the city could expect that school leaders, teachers, and students begin school on the same day, ready to teach and learn. Accordingly, the DOE has elected to delay the start of school by a single day — the 2009-2010 school year will begin on Wednesday, September 9 — and extend the year until Monday, June 28.

It’s hard to know just how many students will remain in school for that final Monday — ask all the parents who are packing up kids this weekend for the start of the sleep-away camp season — but adding the last Monday in June permits DOE to maintain their 180-day instructional calendar without trimming other vacation time during the academic year.

As readers who’ve contributed to our comments can attest, myriad questions persist regarding gifted and talented program placement for rising kindergarten and 1st grade students. This is the second year the Department of Education has administered the process, which had previously been managed by individual districts and schools.

First, for those who have not, at this late date, received word on their child’s placement status, Andy Jacob of the DOE provided an email address, giftedandtalented@schools.nyc.gov, as the best point of contact. Telephone calls and actual visits are less welcome, it seems, than email — despite the experiences of many parents whose emails have gone missing or remained unanswered. Some parents have had success by calling the individual schools to which they applied, and asking for information on their child’s placement status. It’s not the way it’s supposed to work, and it’s labor- and time-intensive, but it’s working, in some cases.

Andy Jacob also asked that we clarify that there are NO wait lists for G&T programs or schools. This is the DOE’s policy, and differs substantially from past years when the schools and the districts administered their own admissions. “There are no wait lists,” he wrote in an email message. “Students get only one placement, and if they reject that placement, they do not get another one.” (more…)

Standardized testing in English Language Arts and Math took place this year in January and March, respectively, but the testing calendar is set to change next year, when both tests will be offered in May, according to information sent to school principals by the Department of Education.

According to the DOE’s Principal’s Weekly, The State’s Board of Regents decided to move both tests far later in the school calendar, to May. (The State’s official 2009-10 calendar still shows the dates in January and March, however.) For many concerned that test prep already occupies too much space in the classroom, the delayed testing dates can’t be welcome news. For those who endorse the predictive strength of standardized test scores, more time to prepare likely seems like a better way to raise test scores. What’s not known is the ripple effect on the Department of Education Progress Reports, which use test-score data to assess student and school progress, and how the new testing calendar will affect the release of test scores to families and schools.

The precise dates are not yet determined, but DOE says they will post to their testing calendar (public access restricted) when they’re decided. We’re curious about the impact of the new schedule on the DOE’s assessment and accountability measures; details to follow when we learn more.

United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten will be leaving the NYC-based teachers union, as has been widely rumored and reported, to focus on her duties as president of the national union, the American Federation of Teachers, a post she’s held since last July.  UFT VP Michael Mulgrew, who began his professional life as a carpenter and is a long-time advocate for career and technical education, will step up and serve as president until elections are held in 2010.

Weingarten’s most recent achievements cap her decade of service with the UFT: She succeeded in negotiating a new contract that gives teachers Labor Day weekend off (and which succeeded in angering the Principals Union), and she worked with the Department of Education’s  Charter Office and Green Dot Public Schools, the California-based charter school entrepreneurs, to secure well-paying union contracts for the new charter’s teachers.

It’s the last week of school, but the questions and concerns swirling around gifted and talented program placements continue, as the hundreds of comments responding to the previous  G&T post attest.

In hopes of getting answers to some of the questions that have been raised, we’d like to hear from readers who have not yet received news of their child’s placement — as of yesterday, at least some families hadn’t yet had word — and from those who’ve had difficulty registering their children for G&T district programs.

We are gathering questions this morning for the Department of Education; please let us know your concerns.

The high school graduation rate for New York State schools will be released at noon today in Albany, as part of a discussion with the state’s Board of Regents. As the mayoral control law sunsets (potentially) in eight days, and as Albany’s various Neros continue to fiddle away, the city’s graduation rate becomes an even more important marker for the effects of mayoral control.

In an unusual move, the NYSED has announced there will be no press conference on the graduation rate — but the Mayor is anticipated to make an education statement at noon today as well, so perhaps we’ll hear the city’s take on the 2008 grad rate then.

We’ll post links to the data and whatever information is released by the state and the city as soon as it’s available.

Update: A webcast of the State’s presentation to the Regents is here, along with the data released; while upward trends largely persist, the news is somewhat more encouraging for ELL students, and it looks like the Regents may reconsider the current phase-out of the Local Diploma, given the troubling split between Regents and Local grads in the 2004 cohort.

Our latest mayoral control poll showed a real split in the Insideschools readership: About a third of respondents said the state should scrap mayoral control entirely; nearly as many wanted a stronger voice for parents in school issues, and about one in five respondents thought mayoral control should remain intact as is. Strikingly few — less than 10 percent — thought the Mayor shouldn’t have the power to fire members of the Panel for Education Policy (which replaced the Board of Education), and only 1o percent said that communities should be consulted prior to school closures and new school sitings.

This week, we wonder where you get your school information — we know you’re Insideschools readers but are there other sources you turn to? Let us know — and if you’ve got a good idea we haven’t mentioned, please send us a comment and share the wealth.

One of the three new citywide gifted and talented programs, slated to open this September at PS 20 in Brooklyn, has been canceled, according to Department of Education spokesperson Andy Jacob. PS 20’s former principal, Sean Keaton, was arrested in May for allegedly attacking a teacher. It’s not known whether or how Keaton’s actions, and their consequences in the wider community, affected the school’s prospects.

The net result is that the program will not open, and it will not be moved to a different school for September, although the DOE will “continue to look” for opportunities to open citywide G&T programs in the future, according to Jacob. Just not at PS 20.

Update: Yesterday, Andy Jacob of the DOE told us (and the New York Times’ “The Local” blog) that the PS 20 citywide program would not open due to lack of sufficient interest.  Our instinct, that Keaton’s arrest put the kibosh on the school, wasn’t far off the mark: As  was  noted on The Local, and as explained by Jacob  earlier today, Principal Keaton’s  difficulties were a factor in the decision to cancel the program.

Jacob said that the DOE heard from parents who had listed PS 20 on their applications, but changed their minds after the Keaton imbroglio. Parent uncertainty was “part of the reason” DOE elected not to open the program, Jacob  said. The  DOE might have been able to fill the classes (based on the applications they’d received, choosing PS 20), but “we were getting indications that many parents would not accept their assignments.” The anticipated pushback from parents, combined with uncertainty about the school’s leadership, influenced the  DOE’s decision to close the program before it opened.

Demand for the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, however, is so strong that the DOE has added a third kindergarten class.  Instead of opening with two kindergarten and two 1st-grade classes, the school will open in September with three kindergartens and one 1st grade.

Last week, both the Post and NY1 highlighted schools’ lack of compliance with regulations that limit the amount of junk food available in public schools: Two-thirds of the schools audited by State Comptroller Thomas diNapoli’s office sold sugary and salty, nutritionally vapid snacks, most often in high-school vending machines. While the ideal of the homemade lunch may seem the best solution, anyone who’s spent time watching a table full of 10-year-olds wheel and deal for extra bags of chips, candy, and cookies knows that what’s sent from home doesn’t always get consumed — at least, not by the intended diner.

But in a case that seems to personify a certain subtype of New York parent, one mother has launched a campaign against nutritionally poor foods wherever they surface in school, including class birthday parties, celebrations, and school stores. While it’s easy to poke fun of a parent that send kids to school with Tupperware containers to collect and bring home the offending foodstuffs, it’s also simple to feel compassion for the kids who have to tote the uneaten sweets home everyday as evidence.

Should one parent, or one family, shape a school’s food policy? The question gets complicated when you think about life-threatening food allergies, yet children who are allergic, vegetarian, or observe kosher or halal rules go to school with kids who eat school lunch and bring sugary cupcakes to bake sales and class parties. How much is the responsibility of the parent to educate their child about what their family sees as right and wrong foods to consume? And how vigilent should schools be in protecting all children from everything unhealthy?

Does your child’s school manage to funnel in plenty of junk food? Do you think it’s a problem? In a city that celebrates diversity and (theoretically, at least) idealizes tolerance, should we be focused on increasing differences around the lunch table? Our nation and our children are experiencing rising levels of diabetes, obesity and other health-care issues related to nutrition. What’s the balance between personal freedom — to eat, and even to overeat — and the greater good?

Students who are English Language Learners are not well-served in the city’s new, small high schools, according to a report released today by Advocates for Children and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. When Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, 28.5 percent of students learning English graduated from high school in four years; now,  only 23.5 percent of English Language Learners graduate on time.

The report, called Empty Promises, takes a close look at two large Brooklyn high schools with established programs for English Language Learners. After the schools were characterized as failing by the Department of Education, they were dismantled and replaced by numerous small high schools sharing the old high-school campuses. Notably, the small schools were permitted by the DOE to exclude English Language Learners (and high-need special education students) until 2007.

Tomorrow, the Center for New York City Affairs releases Pass or Fail: What’s Next for New York City’s High Schools?, a comprehensive report on small-school reforms and school choice. The  morning event will feature Chancellor Klein and a panel of education thinkers, including NYU’s Pedro Noguera and the DOE’s Eric Nadelstern, moderated by the report’s senior editor (and Insideschools founding editor) Clara Hemphill. We’ll post a link to the report tomorrow.

(Editor’s Note: In the interest of disclosure, I’m among a team of reporters who also contributed to the project.)

In Albany, the State Assembly’s Education Committee has passed a revised version of mayoral control which may be voted on by the entire Assembly as early as tomorrow. Over at the Senate,  Hiram Montserrate, the indicted former City Council member who last week defected to the Albany Republicans, has returned to the Democratic fold, for a Senate-splitting 31-31 tie between the parties.

Meanwhile, the mayoral control endorsements continue, at the Times, the Post, and the Daily News. Even UFT president Randi Weingarten, one-time opponent of mayoral control, has come around to the Bloomberg-Klein point of view.

Locally, the city’s budget has won ‘handshake’ approval by the City Council — with no guarantee that schools’ funds will not be hit again. It’s thought that more than 2,000 school employees will find themselves out of work in 2009-2010 — cuts that reach beyond school offices into the classroom, affecting teachers and paraprofessionals.

Last week, we confirmed with Department of Education representatives that kindergarten and 1st grade gifted and talented placement letters would go out starting today.

Now, the DOE website says letters will go out starting June 19th, this Friday — which leaves exactly one week until the deadline for registration, June 26th. Reasons for the delay are, as yet, unclear. As always, we’ll post details when they’re known. But families waiting by the mailbox should bide their time for a few more days, as the June 15th deadline will not be met.

Our most recent poll drew over 1,300 responses, along with a wealth of impassioned comments. Overall, the Mayor’s grade leaves a lot of room for improvement: More than half of respondents graded Mayor Bloomberg’s education policies as an F (28 percent) or a D (24 percent). Good thing he’s not looking for a ’social promotion’ in the next election.

This week, we want to know your thoughts on the nitty-gritty of the mayoral control bill. Even if the legislators in Albany are stalled in a contest of dueling egos, New York City parents can and should speak their minds.

Weigh in with your opinion, and in the meantime, read what some of our readers had to say about last week’s question: (more…)

The action in Albany continues as a national embarrassment (although some states have it worse). Apparently, hell hath no fury like a billionaire scorned.

Meanwhile, New York City’s Sheldon Silver steps out of the famous Albany backroom to offer a bill on mayoral control of the city’s schools, with the support of education committee chair Catherine Nolan of Queens.

Silver’s bill adds some oversights on school closures, contracts and budgeting, and aims to restore a measure of power to the flaccid Panel for Education Policy and the now-dormant district superintendants. School closures would entail 6-month prior notice, with a public hearing 45 days ahead of any planned closure, and provisions are in place to assure audits by both the Independent Budget Office and the Comptroller. The audits would encompass both financial matters and performance-assessment data, including test scores, graduation rates, and other measures that determine the success — and survival — of individual schools and principals.

Silver’s bill would also restore local superintendants to the city’s school districts — but the PEP would still serve at the Mayor’s pleasure, lacking the security of fixed terms. Approved by the Assembly, it moves next to the Senate for consideration.

And in the Senate? We can only hope they’re not still looking for the light switch and wrangling over the keys.

It’s mid-June, and the gifted and talented universe is buzzing: Not only are kindergarten and 1st grade placements anticipated early next week, the Department of Education is accepting applications for 4th and 5th grade seats in citywide and district G&T programs; the deadline for submission, by mail, is June 26th — the last day of school. Students may apply for 4th grade in schools that encompass kindergarten through grade 5; applications for 5th grade are only permitted at K-6 or K-8 schools.

Students with “baseline scores of level 4” on their standardized state exams are eligible for consideration, according to the DOE, which has set cut scores for current 3rd and 4th grade students for district programs: Third graders need scores of at least 720 and 703 on their ELA and Math exams, respectively, and 4th graders need scores of 716 and 702 or higher, in ELA and Math.  We’ve asked the DOE for similar cut scores for citywide schools; if they provide specifics, we’ll pass them along.

The application for families of students currently enrolled in the public schools is here; for families of kids in non-public schools, there’s a separate application, with a carefully-worded paragraph describing the kind of “objective data that demonstrates advanced performance” needed to support a child’s application. (Letters of recommendation, according to the DOE,  are not accepted.)

A cautionary note, well-heeded: Seats in upper-grade programs can be very few, and not every program will have open seats this September. Meeting eligibility criteria does not, in any way, guarantee admission to a G&T program.

Look here for details on school tours and open houses. (Another caveat: The tour list that’s linked to the application shows tours at the new citywide schools, which will begin in September only with kindergarten and first grade. Unless the DOE changes the tour page, parents of older students should disregard the listing for the new citywides, although the three established citywide schools — NEST + m, Anderson, and TAG, span all the grades, and could, in theory, have seats for older students.)

The New York State legislature, never considered a paragon of governmental efficiency, has outdone itself this week with yesterday’s leadership “coup” by a Republican-led coalition. (It’s alarming to consider that the education of more than a million children is in the hands of politicians apparently more committed to theatrics than substance.) Speculation is rampant on what this particular flip means for mayoral control. If the legislature doesn’t act, mayoral control will ’sunset’ on June 30 and the schools could legally revert to the pre-control model, an outcome Bloomberg, Klein and all of Tweed deride as a return to “the bad old days.”

Meanwhile, the Times features a poll citing wide discontent with Mayor Bloomberg — while carefully acknowledging his strong position as a free-spending incumbent, now $20 million into his re-election campaign. While it’s best to be cautious about extrapolating widely from a poll of only 683 respondents, it’s worth noting that two-thirds of New Yorkers polled favor term limits — but that three-fourths don’t care much about whether Bloomberg spends up to $80 million on his third-term campaign. Asked whether the city was headed in the right direction or not, 51 percent said the city was “on the wrong track.” More than half of respondents were dissatisfied with the public schools, down from a Bloomberg-tenure high of 72 percent in a 2004 poll.

Readers continue to vote and comment on our own poll on the mayor’s performance as head of schools. We will wrap up the results on Friday, and post a new - but related - question.

The Department of Education announced today the soon-to-be-official appointment of Garth Harries as assistant superintendent of schools in New Haven, CT.

Harries had previously served as CEO of the Portfolio office at the DOE, where he supervised the wholesale closure of dozens of schools and the creation of hundreds of new schools in their wake. In February 2009, he was appointed to review special education services and programs, which was a controversial announcement because Harries did not have any experience with special education. His review is not yet complete, but he told advocates in an email this morning that he was committed to finishing the project before he begins his new job on July 6.

The special education team has lost most of its lead administrators in recent months: Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning Marcia Lyles is leaving the DOE for a Delaware district, and Linda Wernickoff, who has dedicated her career to the special education community, is retiring this year as well.

The exodus leaves only District 75 Superintendent Bonnie Brown to (potentially) spearhead special education reforms. The changes of leadership at this critical juncture make it all too easy to understand why the community of special education parents, educators, children and advocates believe their cause, and their children, take a remote second place at the DOE table.

As yet, the DOE has not announced who (if anyone) will replace Harries.

Given the increasing public conversation about the pros and cons of mayoral control – and the fact that the law is due to expire on June 30, unless Albany lawmakers approve a new (and improved?) version — we’d like to hear from you: How do you rate our mayor on education?

The schools grade our kids; the DOE grades the schools; it’s your turn, now, to turn the tables and grade the graders. How’s he doing? (a la Ed Koch.)

Our colleagues at GothamSchools have a nifty new feature built to assess the impact of the coming budget cuts:  If you know what’s on the chopping block at your child’s school, chime in and help paint an e-portrait of what 5 percent cuts look and feel like across the city.

Last year, the Department of Education’s new middle school choice and matching process left too many special needs children who were in CTT (collaborative team teaching) classes out in the cold, particularly in “choice” districts where there aren’t zoned schools and students take tests or complete auditions and interviews to secure middle-school seats.

This year, the DOE said that they would send special education students middle school notification at the same time as their general education peers. According to a note in the Principals’ Weekly email, however, the letters for special education students were delayed again. They should have been sent by the end of this week, according to the email.

Patricia Connelly, a member of both the Citywide Council on Special Education and the Parent Commission on School Governance and Mayoral Control, is asking parents of CTT kids in “choice” districts to contact her with concerns about their child’s placement. Information shared with her will be held “in the strictest confidence,” Connelly notes. She can be reached at patricia.connelly@gmail.com.

Update: The math scores are out and both state and city education officials have been busy touting the “steady, measured gains” (as opposed to the “steady, moderate” gains on the ELA exam). Across the state, 86.4 percent of students in 3rd to 8th grade have scored proficient, versus 65 percent in 2006 and 80.7 percent last year. In the city, 81.8 percent of 3rd to 8th grade students scored proficient, versus 57 percent in 2006 and 74.3 percent last year. The city press release touts the fact that the achievement gaps - between the races, the city and the rest of the state, and elementary versus middle school students - have continued to close, albeit slowly. See the Times and Gotham Schools for more analysis and see the press release from City Hall for the mayor’s spin on the scores.

Morning post: The New York State Department of Education will release 2009 math scores for students in grades 3 through 8 at 10:30 am today.

On the standardized reading exam this year, “steady, moderate” statewide gains mirrored citywide trends; 2008 math scores in the city, which historically have posted at higher levels than language scores, showed 79.7 percent of 4th graders at or above state proficiency standards, along with 59.6 percent of 8th graders. (The ongoing mayoral control debate, here and in Albany, will undoubtedly include much discussion on whether the grade-school to middle-school gap and the historic achievement gap between the races have narrowed or not.)

Parents of Manhattan’s PS 9 students whose gifted & talented qualifying tests were lost are still waiting for results from the repeat round of tests, a delay that the Department of Education attributes to some students’ unavailability for re-testing.Tests were scored by hand here in New York at Tweed, but had to be sent to Pearson, the test company in Texas, DOE spokesperson Andy Jacob says, in order to convert raw scores into percentile scores. Why this conversion couldn’t be accomplished electronically isn’t clear — but what’s certain is testing results are late in getting out to waiting families. Jacob says parents will get news today, Thursday. We’ve asked if the application deadline will be changed to reflect the timing delay and will post details when they’re known.

Upper East Side families zoned for PS 151 will learn today at 12:30 of the school’s new site and planned opening in September — hot on the heels of Jeff Coplon’s damning kindergarten feature in New York magazine. Again, details to follow.

News confirmed: As expected, the Chancellor announced that PS 151 would reopen this fall in the former site of Our Lady of Good Counsel School on E. 91st Street. In the Department of Education’s official announcement, the principal of the school, Samantha Kaplan, said that the school’s curriculum would relate to “a neighborhood that is abundant with cultural institutions, historic landmarks and parks all of which provide authentic learning experiences.”

A small footnote at the bottom of the press release notes the the DOE has “reached a preliminary agreement with the Archdiocese of New York to lease P.S. 151’s new building on a short-term basis. The DOE is in negotiations with the Archdiocese to finalize terms.”

The most recent update from the Department of Education lists schools that are newly closed today and others that will reopen. It also itemizes certain specific programs — for disabled students, for example, or for kindergartners registered at one school who share a site with another school — which will close, while the schools that host them will remain open.

It’s not clear why decisions were made to close parts of specific buildings — and even less clear how flu viruses may be contained across arbitrary, human-imposed borders in a single physical structure. To this non-epidemiologist, closing part of a school seems baffling: the virus can’t discern which students it affects, or where they attend school, or which program is theirs. Viruses don’t ask questions; ask any parent with more than one child what happens when one gets sick.

If the contagion is sufficient to warrant protecting some of the students in the building, why not protect them all?

We’re hearing from middle school parents who’ve had happy news from a Manhattan citywide gifted and talented school — but, as of Monday, hadn’t yet had word regarding district G&Ts in their Brooklyn neighborhood.

The deadline to accept offers at citywide gifted and talented middle schools is tomorrow, but the decision is impossible to make with incomplete information — without knowing the local options. (Attending the citywide in Manhattan would involve a commute of at least an hour each way for one family in this situation.) So the day before a critical deadline, families don’t have all the information they need to make informed choices for their children.

Whether or how the Department of Education plans to respond to their own notification delays isn’t yet known — but if you’re a prospective middle-school parent still waiting for G&T placement news from your district schools, please let us know.

A close analysis in today’s Times confirms what seems to be basic logic: For the most part, principals with more experience fare better than younger, less-seasoned school leaders, even those groomed by the city’s Leadership Academy to take over, and often turn around, troubled or failing schools. The observation is particularly acute given the relative inexperience of New York City’s public school principals; nearly 80 percent have been school leaders for eight years or less. (For more on principal training, visit New Leaders for New Schools, a national leadership-training program, and read this Q&A with Leadership Academy head Sandra Stein.)

But even with budget control and other elements of autonomy, all principals do not control or direct their school’s enrollment, a critical management lapse, according to families of pre-K students and those currently waiting for middle school results (and placement offers) for district and citywide gifted and talented programs.

Principals’ job descriptions continue to expand: “You’re a teacher, you’re Judge Judy, you’re a mother, you’re a father, you’re a pastor, you’re a therapist, you’re a nurse, you’re a social worker,” Maxine Nodel, principal of the Millennium Art Academy in the Bronx, told the Times. “You’re a curriculum planner, you’re a data gatherer, you’re a budget scheduler, you’re a vision spreader.”

What you’re not, apparently, is a source of enrollment information for parents in your community. That power rests with the DOE — and parents are caught in the gap, waiting for information while the clock ticks toward DOE-imposed deadlines.

This morning, Chancellor Joel Klein welcomed students back to PS 19, in Corona, Queens.

Twenty schools reopened today; 17 are still closed but will open later this week. See the Department of Health website for official information on H1N1 management.

The Department of Health and the Department of Education have announced that eight additional schools will close starting today, Friday May 22nd, in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The eight schools, which occupy six school buildings, together serve over 6200 children.

These schools will be closed, beginning today:

Questions from parents prompted us to reach out to the Department of Education for more information on 1st and 2nd grade citywide gifted and talented programs based in Manhattan.

First, prospective NEST parents of rising 1st and 2nd graders, what you’ve heard on the tours is correct: The news is not optimistic. At present, there are no seats available in 1st or 2nd grade at NEST, although some may open in late spring or summer, if families move or opt for different schools. The DOE needs to keep an orderly process in place, according to spokesperson Andy Jacob, so that students can be fairly assigned to the school if and when seats open up.

Anderson, which is moving seven blocks south, to the MS 44 building, will open a new 1st grade class, with 27 seats, but has no open spots in 2nd grade. TAG has more room for new students: There are 30 1st grade seats and 12 2nd grade seats to be filled for this coming September.

Parents should note that there is no guarantee beyond kindergarten and 1st grade that children will be offered seats in either district or citywide G&T programs — and the guarantee only holds if families list every district G&T option available to their child, as well as citywide schools of interest, on the application. Accordingly, Jacob said, there will be no waitlists; they won’t be needed when all eligible kindergarten and 1st-grade children are seated. It’s not clear why families of 2nd graders don’t have a waitlist option, for midyear access if seats become available, but the current DOE policy does not include one.

As in general education enrollment, siblings take priority over non-siblings, a decision that makes sense for families, even as it seems to potentially limit access for first-born children. Basically, qualifying siblings who list their big-sib’s school first on their application have priority over non-sibling applicants. Within the sibling group, enrollment priority is determined by test score, and if the number of seats is less than the number of qualifying students, children are randomly assigned to the school.

If seats are still open after siblings are placed, Jacob explained, the same process repeats for non-siblings, with enrollment priority determined by test score. If experience is any guide, non-siblings need to have higher scores than siblings to earn an offer: Last year, siblings with scores in the 97th to 99th percentile were accepted at all three Manhattan citywide programs; no non-siblings with scores below 99 were accepted at NEST or Anderson, although some were placed at TAG.

As predicted by Health Commissioner Thomas R. Frieden and others, continued H1N1 exposure in New York City means that more individuals are being affected by the virus. While in most cases, symptoms are mild and short-lived, the Department of Education, together with the Department of Health, has elected to close 21 schools where H1N1 clusters have been identified.

In addition, a few independent, parochial, and charter schools have also closed: the Horace Mann School in the Bronx, St Joseph’s Academy in Queens, Holy Family School in Flushing, and the three schools that comprise the South Bronx Charter school network.

Three public schools will close today for up to five days: PS 130 in lower Manhattan, PS 35 in Hollis, Queens, and the Merrick Academy Charter School in Jamaica. Together, the schools serve approximately 2,200 students. The DOE reports that 21 schools have been closed due to H1N1 with up to 15,000 students (and at least as many parents) affected.

Students who are missing school don’t need to miss homework, Chancellor Klein said yesterday. Deputy Chancellor of Teaching and Learning Marcia Lyles — who may soon exit the DOE for a new post in Delaware – and her staff have prepared grade-by-grade packets of worksheets and assignments to keep students on track, he said. The packets are optional, and it’s up to parents to judge their relevance to their child’s current schoolwork. (Generic math worksheets in the 8th-grade guide, for example, may be appropriate, too easy, or too hard, depending on each student’s math curriculum. The 3rd-grade guide runs to 86 pages, with daily schedules, vocabulary lists, suggested activities and a “dancing raisin” science experiment from the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco.) There are no resources available for high school students.

Prior to these closures, the city closed 15 public and private schools in Queens (IS 238, PS 16, Q255, IS 5, JHS 74, PS 107, MS 158, Our Lady of Lourdes, IS 25, World Journalism Preparatory, Q233, PS 209, P9, PS 19 and PS 32) and one in Brooklyn (IS 318). More closures may be imminent, although the Chancellor said a press briefing yesterday  that the mayor is hoping for the contagion-stanching benefits of the Memorial Day holiday, when kids won’t be as densely concentrated as they are at school.

Update:   Dr Marcia Lyles, Deputy Chancellor of Teaching and Learning, will leave the DOE, according to information released this afternoon by the Chancellor’s office.  Santiago Taveras, founding principal of two Bronx high schools, Banana Kelly and the Urban Assembly Academy for Careers in Sports, will serve as interim acting Deputy Chancellor.  He currently serves as a Senior Supervising Superintendant, where “he oversees the Department of Education’s high school and district superintendants.” 

Department of Education spokesman Andy Jacob this evening confirmed that families of students applying to middle school for September 2009 will receive placement offers by mail “during the week of May 26.” 

When asked why the news was delayed — DOE’s middle schools calendar originally stated parents would get news in mid-May — Jacob replied, “We’re mailing the offers next week because they will be ready next week. ” 

The DOE website has been updated to reflect the revised timeline.

Today, Chancellor Joel Klein previewed budget cuts at the city’s schools in a message sent to all principals. The news is good or bad, depending on your point of view — and your school’s fiscal status, he said.

“In aggregate,” Klein wrote, “the total dollars in school budgets will be reduced by 3.8 percent.”

In specifics, which he described at a briefing today at Tweed, more than 40 percent of schools may experience cuts of 4.9 percent, while others, such as the approximately 80 schools with large Title I populations, might “get a slight bump” in funding, Klein said.

Schools that managed to save and “roll over” funds from Fiscal Year 09, which ends on June 30th, will experience less severe cuts than those who spent their budgets down, said Klein.

“To be clear: if you rolled over money, the good news is you will be able to spend that money. We are not cutting the money you rolled forward,” he wrote in his letter to principals. Schools were cautioned to save money from this year to plan for the next, although the rate and ability to save varies from school to school. The cut is designed to save approximately $318 million in the coming fiscal year, in addition to the $100 million in midyear cuts.

Principals will be responsible for making decisions about whether to cut programs — Saturday school, after school programming and professional development were three options the Chancellor mentioned — or to trim staff.

“Most schools will be able to find significant portions of this in OTPS [Other Than Personnel Services].” But school leaders are free to lay off staff, “if an aide or a para that they feel is more cuttable than a program,” Klein explained.

At LaGuardia High School, our student blogger writes that upper-level math courses will be snipped.

Specific budgets for each school will be presented to principals tomorrow, and according to the DOE, posted to the DOE website.

Taking a page from the District 3 playbook, yesterday parent representatives of Manhattan’s District 2, joined by the United Federation of Teachers, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education and schools Chancellor Joel Klein, charging violations of state law by DOE reconfiguration of neighborhood schools and programs without Community Education Council consultation or approval.

State education law mandates CEC participation in decisions that affect local schools. Yet “the DOE fails consistently to consult with the CEC,” according to the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, District 2 CEC president Rebecca Daniels. “CEC members have an obligation to take action to right this wrong, to ensure that the voice of New York City public school parents is never silenced.”

The DOE backed down from the District 3 lawsuit in April, backpedaling on its plan to close traditional zoned public schools in Harlem and replace them with charters. The current suit lists a litany of DOE actions at elementary, middle, and high schools in the district; click here for more information.

Heads-up, pre-K families: The Department of Education announced today that it will email or snail-mail placement results to city parents late this week. Although they’re not saying precisely when communications will go out, “the end of this week” sounds pretty committal. Families who applied online will receive word by email and letter; others will receive word just by USPS.

If you choose to accept an offer, you’ll need to register between Tuesday, May 26 and Monday, June 8 at the school your child will attend. Families whose children would have gone to pre-K at PS 3 or PS 41, we’re asking where you’ll register (the schools or the new program site) and will report details. For all families, we’d suggest calling the specific school to confirm their registration hours, to minimize time away from work (and frustration).

Failure to register means giving up the offer of a pre-K seat for your child.

Questions, concerns, and comments on the pre-K process are invited by the DOE at ES_Enrollment@schools.nyc.gov. If you write in, please let us know whether and when there’s a response to your email; last year, communications shortfalls plagued the process, which we hope, for everyone’s sake, will not be the case this year.

Career educator Mitchell Weiner, who devoted his entire professional life to IS 238 in Hollis, Queens, passed away on Sunday — the city’s first loss to H1N1 virus, commonly called swine flu. Whether the school might have closed sooner, or the experimental treatments offered to Weiner, or underlying medical conditions contributed to his death, will be debated elsewhere. (Click here for a list of schools that are currently closed.) What seems most important, in human terms, is Weiner’s heartfelt dedication to the kids in his school. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting epitaph for this “unsung, yet absolutely dedicated ” leader (as he was described by principal’s union leader Ernest A. Logan) than the words of Byron Lopez. his former student, quoted in today’s Times. Lopez, who kept in touch with Mr. Weiner two decades after they shared a classroom, said: “He knew every kid’s name.”

This is the kind of personal connection and dedication students respond to, as seedlings thrive with a steady flow of water. This is the kind of devotion that makes a school into a true community. And this is the kind of loss that, despite the political pot well on the boil, makes clear the essence of public education in New York City: Outstanding professionals pouring their energy, creativity and hard work into children, their families, and their school, in the service of a pure humanitarian ideal. Education for all, with love, support, and direction on the side.

With sincere condolences to Mr. Weiner’s family, friends and the entire IS 238 community, we invite readers who knew him to contribute comments below — to help those of us who didn’t have the pleasure of his instruction, his legendary humor, or his inspiration, get a feel for a life’s outstanding, and unfinished, work.

Update:   Three more Queens schools will close beginning tomorrow, according to the City’s Department of Health:  the Q209 building in Whitestone (PS 209 and P9, a District 75 school), PS 19 in Corona, and PS 32 in Flushing.  The three schools together serve more than 3000 students.

Pre-K should be part of local, zoned schools citywide, said two-thirds of readers who responded to our poll last week, with full-day pre-K strongly favored over half-day options. Universal pre-K is now offered at schools and community-based organizations; while some full-day programs exist, many are half-day, which means that working parents often place their kids in full-day, private programs (with the steep tuition to match) — or pay for child-care to cover the gaps half-day programs leave unfilled.

While we’re on the subject of tuition, and in this season of college-acceptance letters, FAFSA financial aid packets, and big debates about education and funding, we’re wondering what our readers think about planning for higher education. Whether it’s 15 years down the parenting turnpike or around the proverbial corner, for parents of high-schoolers, college costs loom large in the wee-hours worry department.  Let us know what you think on this week’s poll.

After days of scrambling and searching for about 60 missing gifted and talented program tests for students at PS 9 in Manhattan, Department of Education spokesman Andy Jacob said yesterday that the test company, Pearson, found the mis-marked box — but that the tests everyone thought were there, weren’t.

“We’re going to retest the students whose tests we can’t locate,” Jacob said after a letter went out to PS 9 families explaining the process. Do-overs will begin this weekend at the DOE headquarters, Tweed Courthouse, and continue through Thursday at PS 9. Department of Education officials will hand-score the tests and have promised that families “will receive score reports by Tuesday, May 26″ — with applications due Friday, the 29th. Jacob also said that “turning in their applications later won’t affect their chances of being placed in a particular program.”

“There’s nothing we can do to fully make up for the inconvenience and frustration of this situation for the affected families,” said Jacob. “The best thing we can do is retest the students and get them their results as quickly as possible.”

The students will not repeat the full OLSAT exam that was offered in the fall, but will instead take a “breach form of OLSAT,” according to the DOE’s letter to parents, which is the “alternate form used in all retesting situations.”

Parents at PS 9 wonder why their kids have to retest at all. Natalie Redmond, whose daughter’s test was lost, asks why last year’s test scores can’t be used in lieu of a new test. Redmond points out that DOE will use old tests to place some children in G&T programs – if it’s “good enough for kids in the outer boroughs,” Redmond asks, why isn’t the option of using last year’s scores open to PS 9 parents as well?

Whether the missing-tests kids will gain a competitive edge by repeating a familiar test hasn’t been broached. It seems clear, though, that the DOE could mandate practices to prevent this kind of crisis: Why aren’t schools required to photocopy test papers before they’re sent? Seems as simple as a fail-safe can be.

For parents of PS 9 students, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, who took the gifted and talented tests this year, the wait for results has been particularly tough, because their children didn’t receive test results — and the actual tests aren’t in the possession of the Department of Education.Now, according to DOE spokesman Andy Jacob, the mystery is unraveling: it seems that a mislabeled box, which held about 60 tests, was shipped to the company that’s contracted to score the tests in San Antonio, Texas. The box arrived, according to package-tracking records, but as “the test company didn’t realize that it contained materials that needed to be scored, … it was placed in storage” along with extra test materials and other non-scorables.

The search is now on at the test company, Pearson, to locate the mismarked box and score the tests pronto. Once they find the box, “they will be able to score the tests immediately,” said Jacob, who added, “we will hopefully be able to get results to families within a matter of days.” It’s impossible, of course, to say precisely how many days might elapse until the missing box is found, tests are scored, and results are known.

The DOE will likely relax the admissions timeline for affected families. Jacob said, “any of these students who qualify for gifted programs will not be at a disadvantage in the application process. We will make sure that their families have enough time to explore their options and complete their application.”

Let’s hope Pearson finds the box, and quickly, too. Updates to follow; stay tuned.

Update: It’s not good news: Pearson found the box in San Antonio. The tests aren’t there, and no one knows where they are. DOE plans to retest the children whose tests have gone missing; we’ll have details in the morning.

As the mayoral-control debate escalates here and in Albany, a parallel conversation is simmering locally, about the city’s recent rise in standardized test scores.

Two Daily News articles set a strong counterpoint: Last week, columnist Juan Gonzalez challenged the gains touted by the Department of Education, asserting that poor children lack the opportunity for achievement that many others have — and that charters, which enroll far fewer English language learners and special-needs students, benefit from their exclusionary policies. Gonzales concludes, “…when something looks too good to be true, it usually is. ”

Today, big jumps in reading scores are celebrated in the News — but a principal’s explanation of how her school improved test scores is chillingly revealing: “What really helped us was looking at our data and driving the instruction based on that,” Principal Lillian Catalano, a 23-year public school veteran, told the News. School officials “spent hours scouring” students’ work on previous assessments to figure out “where they needed help … on the statewide reading test,” the article explains.

Simply put, this principal and her faculty embraced the data — and upped their scores by ‘teaching to the test.’ They figured out what kids needed to know to do better, and they taught it. But teaching to the test necessarily takes time from other subjects; it limits what a school can offer, and what a teacher can teach. And it doesn’t mean kids are actually learning to think for themselves or master content outside the testing area. Historically, teaching to the test was universally considered a bad thing, but tables turn, and today, it’s lauded. Schools that do the best job of sussing out what the testers want gain the most praise and public recognition; progress reports, based largely on a school’s test scores, can determine a principal’s tenure and even a school’s survival.

It’s hard to argue with a principal who sees the importance of raising scores. The bigger question is what’s lost when the focus-field narrows — when data, scores, and testing outpace content in the classroom.

Parents of children who tested for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade seats in district and citywide gifted and talented programs this year have faced frustration and confusion as they await news of test scores — and, for parents at one Upper West Side school in Manhattan, for evidence that their children actually took the critical tests.

Department of Education spokesman Andy Jacob confirms that “several parents at PS 9… have not received a score report even though their children took the admissions test.” He continues, “We are working with the school and the test company to locate the tests,” and adds, “We’ll obviously make sure that none of these students who took the test are at a disadvantage in the application process.” What he doesn’t detail is precisely how the students whose tests are AWOL will be evaluated; some parents have suggested using last year’s scores, others protest that using old tests will skew this year’s outcome (see below). To date, the DOE is silent on how it means to address any potential “disadvantage.”

We’ve also heard from many parents of children who were permitted to apply for citywide G&T programs based on last year’s scores — which contradicts what Jacob told us last week. In an email, he writes to correct “incomplete information” for students in the Bronx, Staten Island, and Queens — boroughs that, for the most part, did not have kindergarten-entry G&T programs last year. “The hardship of traveling to Manhattan may have dissuaded some families from applying,” says Jacob, which is why the DOE will permit eligible children to apply for citywide G&T programs based on last year’s scores. (Never mind that none of the new citywides will open in the Bronx or Staten Island.) So the bottom line seems to be, some students may apply for citywides on last year’s scores — provided they don’t live in Brooklyn or Manhattan.

The situation with PS 122 in Queens continues to evolve: (more…)

The city’s budget woes will force a ban on new teacher hiring, reports the Times (today and last week), the News, and others. The teacher’s union has high praise for the new strategy, which aims to place ‘excessed’ teachers, often languishing in DOE rubber rooms, back into classrooms citywide. Multi-million dollar savings are anticipated, based on projections by the New Teacher Project, which met with significant UFT derision only last year. (The worrisome projected attrition in the profession, highlighted in an April report, seems to have been forgotten.)

Chancellor Klein and Mayor Bloomberg have long beseeched the ‘best and brightest’ at American colleges and universities to consider teaching as a profession. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and President Barack Obama have often said the same, and consistently support efforts to elevate the status of teaching as a competitive, desirable career choice — as it is in many world cultures whose students outshine their U.S. counterparts.

What’s it to be? Can the city be pro-teacher and anti-hiring? Can city leaders credibly encourage talented young professionals and committed career-changers to consider teaching — and then say, ’sorry, not this year’? It appears the answer is, “Yes, they can — and yes, they have,” although the net result, for the city’s students, teachers, and schools, remains uncertain. Not to mention, a very large gamble.

Clarification:   Teachers who will be hired for the coming school year are mainly those who were assigned to the reserve pool of teachers whose schools have been closed, reconfigured, or otherwise restructured so that their jobs are no longer open.  Educators assigned to the “rubber rooms” face disciplinary evaluations before they may return to the classroom.  

Quick catch-up for parents looking for 1st-grade gifted and talented program information; we have answers from the Department of Education to some general questions (thank you, Andy Jacob), and look forward to details on a couple of specific questions tomorrow or early next week.

First, Jacob says, “Applications were mailed to all kindergarten and 1st-grade students, including those who qualified as entering kindergarteners in 1st-grade-entry districts last year.” If you haven’t yet received word from the DOE about your child’s application, contact the DOE’s Gifted and Talented program office at (212) 374-5165 or (212) 374-5972.

Second, parents have asked if their child’s kindergarten seat is at risk if they choose to apply for citywide G&T (provided their child tested this year and meets eligibility criteria, of course). Concerns about risking a seat are unwarranted, says Jacob. “Unless a child actually accepts another placement, she keeps her current placement.”

Third, we raised a number of questions that have to do with particular districts or particular schools: Regarding Queens’ District 30, the DOE plans to offer G&T programs in three schools come September: PS 150, PS 122 (both in District 30) and PS 217 on Roosevelt Island (District 2). (We are going back to DOE with questions about the commute.)

Readers raised questions about PS 122, which historically began G&T classes in 2nd grade, wondering whether beginning next year’s program in kindergarten would jeopardize 122’s current 1st-graders, some of whom might enter the school’s established G&T program next year. Jacob was unfamiliar with the specific situation, but promised to follow up with G&T staffers; we’ll stay on this.

In District 28, where parents had concerns about too few seats for the number of children who qualified for district G&T programs, Jacob says two additional schools are listed on the application — at PS 220 and PS 55.

Additionally, we have heard from two families of current G&T kindergarten students in Manhattan’s PS 9 who told us that scores for the tests their children took this year are missing. Despite thorough searching at DOE by G&T office workers, the parents say, there is no trace of the test results — or any record that the children actually sat for this year’s test. These parents rightly ask, what happened to the tests their children took? They also want to know what’s next if the tests are truly AWOL — will the DOE use eligibility scores from last year’s test? And finally, in a DOE whose professed hallmark is accountability and transparency, how can there be no paper trail — no physical record of who took which test when? Jacob will, we trust, offer answers to these questions soon.

In the interim, if your child sat for the G&T tests and you have not received notice of her or his scores from DOE, let us know, contact your parent coordinator, and call the DOE to report your concern first thing Monday morning. And if you’re among the families of PS 9 whose children’s tests seem to be missing, please be in touch, so we can try to track down what happened.

Update: The scores for New York City schools and charter schools have been posted.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein celebrated the city’s gains on English Language Arts test scores in Washington, D.C. yesterday even as the State’s new Regents head, Merryl Tisch, characterized the same gains as “moderate” — a perfect object lesson in how the same set of numbers can be used to support different points of view.

The biggest news, according to the Department of Education’s Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger and Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott at yesterday’s press briefing, was an 11-point gain from 2007 to 2008 — the largest single-year gain since annual state testing of third through eighth-graders began in 2006. Rises in middle school scores were attributed by the DOE to its middle-school initiatives — in place for less than six months when the actual tests were taken. Officials also credited the abundance of data-driven analysis made available to schools, and the hard work of teachers, principals and the city’s parents.

Neither official could dismiss the role of test prep — which Bell-Ellwanger characterized as “test sophistication,” a term Walcott praised and adopted — in the rising test scores. “If they’re familiar with the [state learning] standards, they do better on the test,” said Bell-Ellwanger. “It’s about skills-building.” Walcott added. “Just because students know how to take the test — there’s nothing wrong with that. We all take tests in life. Now, more and more students, especially students of color, are becoming more sophisticated. We’re preparing them for the rest of their lives.” (Former DOE testing czar Robert Tobias, now an NYU professor, told the Daily News, “It’s kind of like how you get to Carnegie Hall - practice, practice, practice.”)

Statewide trends showed a similar rise in overall scores, as did scores in other big cities. Scores in Buffalo outpaced scores in New York, and scale scores — the actual number that places a child at the bottom, middle, or top of the four proficiency levels — showed more modest progress. As ever, girls outpaced boys on the standardized exams and younger students scored higher than middle-schoolers (even with the rise in middle school scores). The storied gap between the races, which had loomed at over 30 percent in years past, has lessened over time, to a 26 percent gap between black and white eighth-graders and 27 percent between Hispanic and white eighth-graders.

It’s hard to know how to receive news that proficiency scores for students with special needs and those who are English Language Learners have “tripled” since 2002. On first hearing, that’s great news — but looking at the stats, only about a third of children in each subgroup earned scores that were proficient or better (level 3 or 4), news that’s much less encouraging than it might first appear.

This afternoon the Chancellor is back in town, after joining the Mayor and strange bedfellows Newt Gingrich and Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday for a meeting with President Barack Obama, to announce ELA scores for New York City’s charter schools. Stay tuned.

News has been scarce for families of kindergarteners who tested for 1st-grade gifted and talented programs. While the numbers are far smaller than those for kindergarten-entry G&T, families have questions — and deserve answers. Here’s what we’ve learned.

Not only were fewer rising 1st-graders tested than kids entering kindergarten, the 1st-grade numbers this year are smaller than they were in 2007: some 11,300 students took the test in 2008, compared with about 15,500 in 2007. Despite the drop, the number of students who qualified for district or citywide G&T programs was comparable: 1,454 in 2007 and 1,429 in 2008, which suggests a proportionally stronger outcome with fewer students tested. Have a look at the spreadsheet to see how children in your district fared.

Andy Jacob, the Department of Education’s press officer, says the difference in the overall number of students tested is due in part to the change in entry grade for programs. Last year, G&T programs began either in kindergarten or 1st grade, but this year all programs begin in kindergarten. Children who tested into district programs in areas where G&T started in 1st grade, didn’t have to retest this year, and will be ‘grandfathered’ into this year’s 1st-grade district G&T pool.

Children who qualified for a citywide G&T kindergarten program last year, but declined the offer of a seat, will not be ‘grandfathered’ into citywide applicant pools. Some families declined seats last year due to distance from the programs, which were all located in Manhattan. This year two new citwide programs in Brooklyn and one in Queens will open, providing more opportunities for children who tested this year.

In terms of qualifying 1st-graders, District 2 still leads the pack: 29 percent of students tested are eligible for gifted programs. Even though other districts tested hundreds more students, District 2 also had the most 1st-graders to clear the citywide bar. Bronx District 5, however, showed the biggest percentage gains. Last year 2 percent of students qualified for citywide G&T, compared to 11 percent this year — a jump from two to 12 students. And 32 District 5 children, up from 12, qualified for district G&T programs.

This afternoon at 1 p.m., the Department of Education will present results of the State English Language Arts exam for New York City public school students in grades 3 through 8.

These scores help to determine a school’s Progress Report score — and, in some cases, its survival.  Principals and teachers can be rewarded handsomely for large gains — but outcomes for fourth- and seventh-grade students are higher still, as the standardized scores children earn in those grades help determine middle- and high-school placement.

We’ll post details after the briefing.