Last week I attended a historic poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Café on East Third Street which determined the first ever Youth Poet Laureate of New York. Our first Youth Poet Laureate is Zora Howard, a senior at LaGuardia High School. As laureate, she will travel around the city performing poetry and encouraging civil engagement in her fellow youth.

The crowd was warm and enthusiastic. There were 12 finalists and about 50 audience members, mostly young people. The audience was very passionate about the performances, snapping and “mmm”ing and encouraging the poets if they stumbled or forgot a line. Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott was also there, giving the event an air of political importance. Each contestant performed one three-minute poem on a subject of their choice, and then a one-minute piece related to voting or civic engagement. (more…)

One day this week, my daughter brought home a book from her kindergarten class entitled “A Fine, Fine School” by Sharon Creech. It is the story of a well-meaning principal who is so proud of his fine, fine students and teachers that he decides to extend school to weekends, holidays, and the summer.

At first, though miserable, no one dared to object because it was obvious that the principal only wanted the best for his fine, fine students. After all, they were learning so much in school. Eventually, one brave girl helps the principal to see that ,although they are learning a great deal, there is much that was not being learned, such as how to climb and sit in a tree for an hour.

Last week the New York Daily News reported that President Obama proposed an increase in school hours as a means to achieving significant academic gains. The article included a quote from Education Secretary Arne Duncan suggesting that children in the US are being out-performed academically because they spend less time in the classroom. (more…)

Students are not the only ones wrangling with mathematics this year. Yesterday, The New York Times reported how principals have cut costs to meet their 5% slimmer school budgets, after the budget cuts announced last spring.

According to the Times, principals across the city made most cuts by eliminating teaching positions and reducing spending on equipment, supplies, and books. For one Brooklyn principal at PS 273, the loss of four teachers bumped class size from 21 students to 29.

Today’s Daily News reports on overcrowding in other city classrooms — including  40 students jammed into  one room at PS 102 in the Bronx. Leonie Haimson, of Class Size Matters, has published a Q&A with details about class size limits, according to the UFT contract: 25 in kindergarten, up to 28 in grades 1-3, and 32 in grades 4-6.  Beyond those numbers, teachers can “grieve” (complain) to the Department of Education. (more…)

The hundreds of kindergarteners on waiting lists for schools all over the city are not the only sign of crowding in the schools, as many schools fear being forced to open extra classes in rooms that are now used for art and music. Rather than looking for the source of these failures in enrollment projections or capital planning, the Department of Education is going on the offensive against parents. In this case, their target is parents and parent associations who fund part-time arts, chess, and assistant teachers to make up for DOE shortfalls. The new DOE approach threatens to end services for hundreds if not thousands of children.

In a series of letters and school visits, the DOE has asserted that parents must hand their money over to DOE, subject to DOE rules about timing and amounts, before that money can be used to pay for part time aides and enrichment. A few years ago Klein abolished Project Arts, the program that used to reserve funds to ensure that all public school kids would receive music, dance, and visual arts. Now the DOE is trying to crack down on parents’ efforts to provide access to these fundamentals of a decent education. (more…)

As regular readers may have noticed, our format’s changed to permit greater use of daily images.Now, we’re reaching out to city parents for pictures they love: Of their schools, their classes, their kids, and the amazing art projects and staggering science experiments those kids create. We’re also looking for kid-made photos, from grade-schoolers learning to point and shoot to big kids’ personal projects. Scanned art also works!

To that end, we’ve set up an Insideschools group on Flickr, and we cordially invite readers to join and submit their best pics and video clips. We’ll use some of the images on the site, with a new weekly feature showcasing photos of the week, and will of course happily credit contributors by name.

Here’s how to start: First, go to Flickr.com. If you’re not yet a member, please join — it requires a free Yahoo account and only takes a couple of minutes. Once you’ve joined, click on the “Groups” button at the top of the page. Search for “Insideschools,” join the group, and hey, presto! You’re in.

We look forward with curiosity and pleasure to seeing what our readers send in.

Urban shutterbugs, get busy –

“My Life, My Lens,” a new summer film program for budding 7th- and 8th-grade auteurs, brings teachers, students, and filmmakers from the New York Film Academy together in a workshop designed to cultivate young talent.

The program, part of the Department of Education’s ongoing Campaign for Middle School Success, brings NYFA staff into the schools this spring to help develop scripts for consideration. Students can register independently, with a parent or another adult film partner, or through their school. For information, attend the final information workshop this week (the first two dates passed before the DOE made a formal announcement of the program).

By May 18, a panel of judges will select 250 finalists whose scripts will become actual films during the NYFA summer workshop. Funding for the project is supplied by NYFA and Best Buy, the electronics retailer that the DOE describes as “a national supporter of film education.”

Hollywood has the Oscars, New York has the Tonys (and sometimes, the Emmys and the Grammys, too) — but come fall, New York’s middle-schoolers will have a red-carpet premiere of their own, when NYFA judges will select and screen the summer’s winning films.

Applications for the program are due April 22. For more information, email NYCMSFF@nyc,gov. If your kid’s already posting videos on YouTube and Facebook, film camp just might be the perfect summer idyll. High-school and college-age students interested in a longer-term commitment might want to consider Ghetto FIlm School’s 15-month program; the deadline to apply is this Friday, March 20th.

I have an 8 year old daughter who is in the top class; however the teacher told me that she is not interested in reading, writing and math, and is only interested in being social with the other children. She suggested I give her incentives. Can you give me some ideas to motivate my child to like reading, math and writing?

Puzzled Mom

Dear Puzzled Mom,

Do you know why she lost interest in her studies? Is she concentrating on friendships because she feels insecure and has to work hard to make and keep friends? Does she have a chance to see her friends after school or on weekends? You can help boost her self confidence by arranging playdates with friends. Is the work too difficult? If so, ask the teacher to schedule extra help or tutoring for her. Or, is she bored because the work is dull? If that’s the case, here are some ideas on how to keep her interested.

Introduce her to fun series books such as Ramona by Beverly Cleary, Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgrin, Encyclopedia Brown by Donald Sobol, or Magic Treehouse by Mary Pope Osborne. Good books are great motivators. Teachers may see these books as too easy, but they usually have kids clamoring for more. Once she is hooked on a series, the next title could be a reward for reading what the teacher assigns. Tapes and movies of these books in combination with the published versions make stories come alive. Take the time to read, watch, or listen with her. You can find plenty of other appealing books at the public library. Ask a librarian to help find those that are geared to her interests.

Encourage your daughter to write to grandparents, aunts and uncles, or neighbors who all welcome mail from kids. She can start with e-mail, and if she gets a correspondence going, she can move on to cards for special occasions and then longer letters. Writing in a diary is also fun, made even more appealing if you give her a special notebook with a pretty cover. She can write privately after she does the required school journal writing. Or, you and your daughter can read poetry and write poems together. Your participation is really important!

If you or other family members are good at math, share fun problems and puzzles. Some kids like to do arithmetic in workbooks at home. Others respond to just fooling around with a calculator or using it to solve problems that come up in shopping, like figuring out which box of raisins is the best buy or making change.

With the teacher’s cooperation, (she’ll report to you the good behavior days) your daughter can have a notebook full of stickers - one for each time she pays attention in school and does her homework willingly. When the agreed upon number is reached, you’ll reward her with something you both agree upon: Some small change? A toy she’s been yearning for? A special treat?

And, if you’d like to hear an expert speak on the topic of motivation, consider going to a talk by Rick Lavoie, author of “The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning on the Tuned-Out Child”. He will be speaking in Brooklyn on Feb. 11. See our calendar for details about this free event..

Good luck and have fun.

Judy

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

At a time of escalating economic contraction — and when the City Council, which not so long ago fought potential education budget cuts to the penny, now proposes $ 75 million in DOE trims – parents and educators understandably wonder what will become of non-academic but vital arts education in the city’s schools.

The DOE’s 2007 Arts in Schools report documented shortfalls even in comparatively ‘flush’ times: Nearly a third of schools lacked certified art teachers (compared with 20% in 2006); spending for supplies and equipment was reduced by nearly $7 million; and more than 90% of grade-schoolers (and more than 50% of middle-schoolers) didn’t get the arts education that’s explicitly mandated by state law.

Tomorrow evening, the Center for Arts Education invites concerned city parents to learn more about arts education funding in the city’s schools; particulars are here.

Remember this pint-sized Upper West Sider with a reviewer’s notebook and a $25 budget for his weeknight supper? Looks like a movie deal is in the works… all the way to the bank (or chic banquette, perhaps?).

A troika of bad-news education stories in today’s Times: An administrator possibly worried about her next job is suspected of changing test scores on a Regents exam (her current, six-figure-plus position, at a Bronx school that scored an A for ‘progress,’ is being cut in budget rollbacks) and has been ousted after nearly three decades in the city’s schools. (The Post basically indicts her here.) The 36-year-old founding principal of the teacher’s union’s flagship charter school, the UFT Secondary Charter School in East New York, has made an exit, by mutual consent, if reports are to be believed. And in Pembroke Pines, Florida, a 7-year-old is facing possible expulsion for pulling a butter knife on a first-grader — in washroom stickup, for $1 in lunch money. Incredibly, the incident, which left the 6-year-old with a nosebleed, went unremarked until parents complained — raising questions about what, exactly, school personnel were doing when a bleeding child was discovered. The child ‘perp’ may be placed in another school, according to Broward County schools spokesman Keith Browery. “We don’t expel to the street.”

As an antidote to the gloom, consider what a few extraordinary kids have to say, via the “Be A Champion” essay context, which named 100 winning essays among 350 entries from special-needs students across the city — and included a celebration featuring New York Jet Tony Richardson, DOE reps, and Lime Connect, which together sponsored the contest. One Bronx boy writes:

“I am a very energetic 12-year-old amputee. At birth,…I was diagnosed with Amniotic Band Syndrome which resulted in my left leg being amputated below my knee, three days after my birth. As much as I can remember, I have never experienced any difficulties achieving my goals. … I am a champion because I never allow my disability to prevent me from fitting in. … Last summer I received the First Place medal for running [with my amputee support group]. I taught myself to swim. … I mastered rock-climbing and bike-riding. Sometimes, I even forget I am wearing a prosthesis.”

A high-school girl in Queens has a different outlook: “I feel everyone is a champion in my eyes. If you put your all into something you want badly, you need to fight. … At one point in my life, I was a champion. Then I let myself down by giving up. I stopped being good in school and doing all my work. … I even stopped going to school. Now I’m back in school and will go on to college. … I have the power and courage to do what I need to do to get what I need. I always let people tell me I will never be anything in life. I’m proving them wrong by doing the right thing. … My word for all the champions out there: don’t let anyone stop you from finishing, or trying to make your goals in life.”

Heartfelt advice, and welcome perspective in a too-cynical world.

Amid the giant balloons and candied yams, Insideschools wishes our readers and their families a warm Thanksgiving, with hopes for just a moment’s quiet to hear “the still, small voice of gratitude” echoing down the decades, from Milton to dining-room tables across the city.

With every wish for a city where every child and every family has a Thanksgiving to share — and a table to gather around — we send our best thanks for your continued support in this ongoing conversation. Speak up: The stakes are high, and passions run higher still, but common ground — the city’s complicated, diverse, challenging, wacky and enchanting kids — underpins us all.

Last week I discovered that a friend of mine lives alone in an apartment in midtown Manhattan (at age 16) while the rest of her family lives in Pennsylvania. She gets along well with her mother and sister and misses them a lot, so I wondered why she wasn’t living with them. Her answer was totally unexpected: She wanted to stay at our high school, LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and the Performing Arts.

Wow.

In a constantly trashed (usually with good reason) public high school system, why would a public high school cause a 16-year-old to live by herself, miles away from her family? Well, this answer was less unexpected: Acting. My friend is a drama major and her passion for acting wouldn’t allow her to pass up the opportunities that LaGuardia offers. Hearing that definitely made me even more worried that arts education will be threatened by ever-increasing budget cuts. The one thing that inspires so much passion from students is the one thing constantly being taken away.

I see students working harder in their studios at LaGuardia than any other subject of school or life. Students stay until 11:00 at night rehearsing for the musical, putting together an art gallery, working out a jazz arrangement to a piece they composed or choreographing a dance for the talent show. And it’s not just the classic high-achievers who stay late. In fact, the studios at my school do an unbelievable job of uniting students with different grades and attitudes toward school, as well as different races and places in life.

Education activists, teachers, and parents often wonder how they can deal with students who are apathetic towards school and learning. I know for a fact that many kids at my school get up each day mostly for their studio classes. The arts put failing students in center stage and allow them to achieve beyond anything expected of them in any of their classes. Students who struggle in math put their passion into music, drama, dance, visual arts, whatever it is- and find that, as our country just discovered (!!!), yes, they can.

Some spooky Halloween disappearing act (or perhaps a whisper from DOE?) may explain how a piece of investigative reporting vanished into thin air. Another surprise came from the UFT, in support of the Teaching Fellows - the groups haven’t always had the coziest relationship, but now, the union’s defending more than 100 new fellows who have yet to be actually hired by any specific school. And substitute teachers will now have to pass a test before being allowed to take over the classrooms.

One snobby newbie will hopefully never teach again; the courts supported a Bronx principal who fired a teacher for cursing at his students and boasting that his parents didn’t send him “to Cornell so I could take care of a bunch of animals.” Others, thankfully, go above and beyond in their lessons on global warming - a Harlem teacher taught class from Antarctica and a Brooklyn teacher did same, from the Canadian Arctic. Not to be outdone, math teachers study comedy improv solutions to classroom problems. And one struggling artist/author who turned to teaching suddenly hit it big with his latest book - but plans to keep teaching art anyway.

And how much art is being taught in city schools? We may never really know, contends an article that questions the DOE’s latest report. But a new research center to study city schools opened this week… again. So now there are two centers researching what is happening in classrooms and principals’ offices across the city. Maybe they can study the effects of overcrowding and reports that schools in some neighborhoods are less and less diverse. The feds, through No Child Left Behind, announced plans to hold schools accountable for the achievement gap in high school graduation rates, and another report said that parents make a substantial difference in a child’s decision to drop out. A Voice column argues that the actions of school safety officers need to be better regulated, and there may just be an obvious, fair, easy, and inexpensive solution to the issue of military recruitment in city high schools.

Maybe the next generation of investors can learn from the current market-troubles: when CNBC recently reported a bounce in the Dow, cheers broke out in a fifth-grade class in Queens. Parents celebrate more options for autistic students, like a charter school specifically designed for students on the autism spectrum, and a school for social justice finally found a permanent home, delivering on a deathbed promise. Seward Park High School’s rooftop got a hip-hop redesign, organized by the New Design High School, and the students at PS 19 weren’t about to let a state-senate hopeful off easily when he served as principal for a day. As 8th graders consider their high school picks, current Staten Island high school students weigh in on the commute to Manhattan.

We can bet the state certainly won’t increase aid to schools next year, but will they decrease it? With all the talk of cut-backs, the DOE defends spending more than $5 million for courier services. After all, high stakes testing necessitate high security. And some wonder how the job of school district superintendent fits into the new systems in the city. Chancellor Klein said he would look into it.

Yesterday, the DOE released its second annual Arts in Education report. The ‘gains’ celebrated by the DOE — rising percentages of students participating in the arts –obscure both the comparatively small fraction of students who receive arts education at all, and the overwhelming trend of decreasing arts education as students progress from elementary to middle to high school.

For an example of a little bit of good news, the report says that the DOE has increased per capita arts funding. They have — from $308 per student to $311. Is a $3 rise significant? You be the judge.

Visual arts remains the most widely offered discipline, but less than half of the city’s elementary schools and only a third of middle schools offer four arts options — visual arts, music, drama, and dance. These numbers, while disturbingly low, do represent increases from 2006-07 (38% and 17%, respectively), which the report attributes at least in part to more accurate reporting.

Arts study decreases significantly as students get older. From an average of 83% of elementary students exposed to at least one arts discipline during the academic year, the percentage drops steadily: 73% of 7th graders, 57% of 8th graders, declining to 31% in 12th grade.

An article in the Post highlighted serious shortfalls in elementary arts education, but a couple of nagging questions persist: There’s little distinction drawn by DOE between arts within general-ed coursework (think tri-fold board craft projects) and studio-level arts instruction. And there’s no attention paid to the minority of public schools in relatively wealthy districts which, via PTA funding and other parent-supported efforts, maintain their own robust arts programs, distinct from DOE curriculum.

Who doesn’t want more arts education for our city’s students? Parents as Arts Partners, via the Center for Arts Education, brings the creative process to thousands of kids and families every year. It’s a great way to get involved in the life of your child’s school and to make a real contribution to the school culture. It’s also a lot of fun.

Last year, PAAP grants funded fine arts and performing arts programs that spanned the gamut: think book-making and collage workshops, videography and architecture projects, and dance and folk-tale performances. Have a look here for successful programs.

Funding shortfalls mean that two-thirds fewer grants will be awarded this year than in years past. Grants of up to $3000 are available to 50 public schools provided they have never been CAE-funded in the past. The CAE website has tips, information and application materials; they’ll also host pre-application seminars starting later this month.

If your teen’s looking for some last-minute summer culture, contact Mudbone about their Shakespeare workshops at the Public Theater (this week) and in the Bronx (this Sunday, the 24th

Happy Mother’s Day to all Insideschools moms!

Are you on Facebook? If so, you can now become a fan of Insideschools!

In honor of April Fools’ Day, I’d like to direct your attention toward some of the high quality satire of New York City schools that’s out there on the web. But be careful: as with much satire, these links are so close to reality that they almost aren’t funny.

• Billionaires for Education Reform describes Smellington Worthington III’s attempts to uncover “the best ways to train the great unwashed.” Smellington seems to be on hiatus right now as he explores ways to profit off of the city’s schools, but his past entries — and those of his wife, Muffy — are worth a read.

• For more than a year, Gary Babad has been contributing satirical news stories to the NYC Public School Parents blog. Nothing, from the cell phone ban to ARIS to school pizza parties, escapes Babad’s cutting wit.

• And children’s musician Tom Chapin, a graduate of the city’s schools, has just released a video for his newest song, “Not on the Test.” Sample lyric: “Each box that you mark on each test that you take/Remember your teachers, their jobs are at stake/Your score is their score, but don’t get all stressed/They’d never teach anything not on the test.” Ha ha!

For the last year, parents at PS 154 in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, have been looking for ways to replace the styrofoam trays in their cafeteria with something more environmentally sound — something that takes less than 10,000 years to degrade. This week, they finally rolled out their solution: trays formed out of bagasse, a fibrous byproduct of sugar extraction. The new trays are designed to break down after 45 days in landfill conditions — but I hope parents at PS 154 know that won’t happen if the trays are shipped off to landfills in plastic bags. And it looks like the PS 154 parents may be at the vanguard of a food service revolution in New York City — Bill de Blasio, the City Council member who represents PS 154, has sponsored a bill to ban the use of styrofoam by city agencies!

Yesterday the DOE released its long-awaited “Annual Arts and Schools Report” (pdf), an optional survey completed by 1,079 principals about their arts offerings in the 2006-2007 school year. The DOE says the report is important because it ushers in a new era of detailed reporting on arts education data, but the real story is that few elementary or middle school students get the bare minimum arts education required by the state. The New York Times, unlike the Sun, got the story right: Only 4 percent of elementary schools have the resources to provide the range and depth of arts instruction the state requires, and the vast majority of middle schoolers — 71 percent — receive less than the state-mandated two half-unit arts courses in the 7th and 8th grades.

The city is “not providing a well-education” to its children, said Richard Kessler, the director of the Center for Arts Education, which is ramping up its role as an advocate for arts education. He told me the city’s anemic arts education has a lot to do with the inexperience of many new principals, who have never been taught the importance of the arts and whose own educational experiences likely lacked quality arts programming as well. Giving the arts and other marginalized subjects the role they ought to occupy will require “major in-service and pre-service” training for principals, Kessler said, but the DOE’s plans, outlined in the report, represent only “tinkering around the margins” of existing programs.

Kessler was a member of the DOE’s arts education task force, convened last summer when ArtsCount was announced in part to address criticism that the elimination of special Project Arts funds would lead principals to reallocate funds from the arts to other subjects. Ultimately, it sounds like the task force played a minimal role in creating the report or recommending its outcomes. The DOE also appears to have backed away from a major goal it outlined last summer: to use the arts data to hold principals and schools accountable for meeting state requirements in the arts and to make the school-by-school arts data transparent and accessible so parents can use the level of arts programming as a factor in choosing a school. The level of deficiency in elementary and middle school arts offerings indicates that principals can’t justifiably be held accountable for a nearly systemic failure.

The report’s “next steps” section includes news that the DOE will make lesson plans and standards-aligned curriculums available to teachers and that efforts are underway to make principals “better consumers” of existing arts resources. But with deep budget cuts looming and math and reading test scores continuing to make up 85 percent of schools’ grades, what resources and incentives do principals have to spend their limited funds and time on the arts?

Parents — looking for something to do during this week off? Take a survey about the arts in your school. The Center for Arts Education is surveying parents about their opinions on arts education and the role of art at their schools. By taking the survey, you’ll be helping CAE advocate for better arts programming in the city’s schools — at precisely the time that principals are feeling like they have to cut arts funding.

Parents — looking for something to do during this week off? Take a survey about the arts in your school. The Center for Arts Education is surveying parents about their opinions on arts education and the role of art at their schools. By taking the survey, you’ll be helping CAE advocate for better arts programming in the city’s schools — at precisely the time that principals are feeling like they have to cut arts funding.

The Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling this summer raised our hopes that the city’s schools would finally receive equitable and more adequate funding, but it’s turning out not to be quite the banner year for school funding that some had hoped. First, Governor Spitzer reduced the amount of new money flowing to the city’s schools. Now, Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a $324 million reduction in the city’s education budget, representing a 1.3 percent cut.

According to the Post, Bloomberg sees the cuts as an inducement for principals to spend more efficiently. Speaking as the business leader who amassed a fortune of nearly $12 billion (or $324 million, 37 times), Bloomberg said,

“I’m sorry. You can always cut 1.3 percent. In fact, it’s healthy to go and say let’s cut a little bit and force the principals and the teachers and the administrators to say, ‘Is this program worth it?’”

Bloomberg’s sentiment is, of course, offensive to principals and teachers and administrators who are struggling to provide high-quality educations under difficult circumstances and who certainly don’t think anything they’re doing is worthless (except maybe confiscating cell phones and administering standardized tests under DOE orders). And more than that, it’s offensive to children for whom every art class, field trip, and ounce of enrichment means something, even if those expenditures don’t always immediately translate into improved “performance.”

Elected leaders often have to make difficult decisions that adversely affect their constituents. We understand. But they don’t have to sound happy about it.

When choosing a middle school, what happens after hours is critical in a city where space is scarce and fields are threatened.

Parents mulling middle school options spend a great deal of time comparing math and science programs, class size and school philosophies. They also can’t help noticing the wide disparity of sports and after-school programs and activities

Extras like robotics and rock bands can be big factors for working parents. Who wouldn’t prefer having their kids in fun, structured activities in school instead of hanging out in city parks, unsupervised?

Kids care a lot about these offerings as well. My 5th-grade son is absolutely swayed by the promise of track, soccer and swim teams.

After school sports are even more critical at a time when the few athletic fields available to New York City kids are threatened by politics - as at Randall’s Island - or by development, as at Pier 40, where a huge rally is planned this Sunday at noon to save the fields from development.

So far, no middle school we’ve toured can compete with the offerings at M.A.T. in Chinatown, detailed in a great piece last week in the Downtown Express. The promise of the long-awaited community center that will be available free for all students at IS 289 will also be welcome.

But only M.A.T. offers a climbing wall (a great metaphor for middle schoolers, who literally climb them anyway) along with a surfing club and a tremendous track and field program. John De Matteo, the school’s ambitious athletic director, is building a really impressive program where 65 percent of all students participate in a sport.

To his credit, De Matteo has already met with the principal of Tompkins Square Middle School to explain how M.A.T. can support 16 sports and 38 teams. He plans to meet with other middle school principals to talk about how they can model their programs after M.A.T. as well.

De Matteo is happy to share his insights because he is so convinced that it makes a huge difference in the lives of middle schoolers.

“I believe that being on a structured sports team which teaches children how to work with their teammates, build sportsmanship, build community and character and motivate to improve grades will be one of the most important opportunities for our children to have,” he says.

Any advice M.A.T. can offer middle school principals will be a positive step for all New York City public schools. Space, money and scheduling issues all interfere with the creation of after school programs. Just last week, hundreds of kids and parents crowded into PS 3 in the West Village, pointing out the critical need for more schools in Chelsea and the Village. Kids wondered why luxury condos are cropping up everywhere when schools are not.

There are not enough good public schools in the city. We also need fields, after school programs and sports. Parents are going to have to make a lot of noise to make sure we get them.

In the meantime, let’s offer support and encouragement to the educators and visionaries who are creating, pushing and sharing programs that mean so much to our kids.

Next year, kids at 10-15 schools will have more time in school if all goes according to plan for The After School Corporation, which at the chancellor’s urging has bought into a national push to give up on traditional school hours.

According to the Daily News, TASC is planning a pilot in which kids might go to school through the summer or until 6 p.m. daily in an effort to extend the amount of time they’re learning. In addition to having more time for academics (and, presumably, testing), TASC President Lucy Friedman told the Daily News the new schedule will allow schools to preserve art, music, and sports programs that have been pushed out during the regular school day. TASC says the pilot will honor the teachers’ contract, although it’s difficult to imagine how it could, and it can’t be a good sign that UFT President Randi Weingarten has already called the pilot “another one of these secretive plots.”

The Daily News notes that the idea for the pilot germinated in conversations with Chancellor Klein. Nationally, there is a growing movement to extend school time; the National Center on Time and Learning was launched in October (with some funding from Klein favorite the Broad Foundation), and the issue even got discussed during a Democratic presidential debate this fall. Many charter schools already have longer school schedules.

An article about Ghetto Film School in today’s Times says the Bronx program for teens interested in cinema may be the progenitor of a film-themed high school to open in 2009. The program, whose name does not always sit well with the famous directors who give it money, already provides support for teachers at New Explorers High School, but organizers want a school of their own to rival LaGuardia. According to the article, the new school will be selective, have 600 students at full capacity, and offer electives in screenwriting and film production. All that remains is for the DOE to approve the proposal — and for the school to come up with a new name. The Bronx High School for Cinema, Excellence, and Scholarship, anyone?

Fear no more. There are few excuses to keep teens’ noses out of the books this summer, thanks to the many free resources and programs provided at the increasingly popular teens-only space, appropriately dubbed Teen Central, at Donnell Public Library in midtown Manhattan (Map).

To keep the reading momentum up and running once the final school bell sounds for summer, Teen Central keeps its doors open seven days a week for kids between the ages of 12 and 19. Offering the hottest new titles in Young Adult literature (think travel series and graphic novels), CD’s, DVD’s, video games, and free internet access, Teen Central serves as an oasis of stimulating and educational books and other media.

And just to make sure teens don’t get bored of all those free books and music, the staff at Donnell’s Teen Central has also put together an itinerary of events and competitions for its ever-active clientèle. Teens compete with blenders during “Iron Chef” days and with video game controllers on “Game On” days. They can channel even more creative energy at craft workshops.

Wise teachers and parents know well the importance of summer reading lists to keep kids’ restless minds (and bodies) occupied. Yet new research shows just how much of an impact that summer reading has. As EdWeek reported this week on a recent Baltimore study, gaps in student achievement might very well be linked to the amount of reading done (or lack thereof) during those precious months outside school walls.

Check Teen Central’s calendar for a complete schedule of hours and programs going on this summer. Then check back in soon to see what the library has in store for the fast-approaching back-to-school days.