Parents who want to serve on the Citywide Council on Special Education (CCSE), or the new Citywide Council on English Language Learners (CCELL) now have until March 19 to nominate themselves. The original due date was March 12.

Applications are available online at powertotheparents.org. Paper applications are available through the Office for Family Engagement and Advocacy, or call 212-374-4118.

There is no change in the dates for the citywide “advisory vote ” by parents on April 26-30 and the actual selection by PA and PTA officers on May 11-12 . Successful candidates will be announced May 31.

The special ed council is being reconstituted to bring it in line with the August 2009 amendments to State education law. Now, CCSE members must include parents or guardians of all students with individualized education programs (IEPs), not just parents of District 75 students. The CCELL is a new council established under the August law. Candidates must be parents of students in programs for English Language Learners.

Chancellor Klein announced yesterday that public input will help direct the allocation of this year’s Contracts for Excellence funding. This should be a heads-up for parents and educators who have long been frustrated with the city’s educational spending decisions.

The Contracts for Excellence funds support programs aimed at students in greatest need: English Language Learners, students in poverty, students with disabilities and those with low academic achievement. These funds are to be spent in six specific program areas: class size reduction, time on task, teacher and principal quality initiatives, school restructuring, full day pre-K ,and ELL programs.

Class size reduction has been a consistently hot topic in the educational funding debate with Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, one of the fiercest advocates. “If you believe that your child is not receiving the education he or she deserves because of overly large classes, you should attend these hearings, speak out, and demand that the State Education Department provide stronger oversight so that NYC complies with the law,” Haimson says in a press release this week. (more…)

Charter schools seem unable to shake the perception that they don’t enroll as many students with special needs  - those who are disabled or who need help learning English, for example - as traditional schools.

Yesterday’s Boston Globe spotlights the expansion of charter schools in Massachusetts, but notes the discrepancy in enrollment of special needs students in charter schools as compared to other schools. It reports that  English language learners make up a fifth of the students in the Boston school system, yet they represent only 4% of the students in all but one  charter school. Special education students likewise are underrepresented in Boston charter schools as compared to their traditional counterparts. (more…)

As the end of the school year marked the exit of several top special education officials at the DOE, we wondered when departing Garth Harries, senior coordinator for special education, would issue his recommendations to improve special education services.

Today, Harries met with the Arise Coalition at Advocates for Children’s Midtown offices to share his final report just a few hours before Chancellor Klein announced a  new special education head at Tweed.

“There are recommendations in the document we have not seen in prior reports, and, if implemented well, could make a big difference for kids with disabilities,” said Kim Sweet, AFC’s executive director. In particular, she noted that recommendations called for aligning special education processes, such as admission and school placement, to coincide with general education deadlines. (more…)

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.)

It can’t be pure coincidence that the DOE released a report highlighting gains made by English language learners less than a week after a boisterous mayoral-control hearing in the Bronx. And even though the report cites gains — three times as many students tested as English-proficient in 2008 than in 2003 — the actual percentages are still discouragingly low: In 2008, 13 percent of English language learners (ELLs) demonstrated proficiency, compared with 4 percent in 2003.

Language learners show test-score gains in fourth and eighth grade math as well, according to the DOE’s report (link here to pdf). But the Department of Education omits a key summary from the report in its good-news press release: “Elementary English language learners continue to make larger gains than middle school English language learners… The less dramatic gains by middle school ELLs, relatively flat Regents scores, and flat graduation rates (31.6% in 2003 and 30.8% in 2007) underscore the immediate demand for deeper, more focused attention.” In plain language, younger kids are doing better, as is often the case in language acquisition — and results for older kids aren’t nearly as encouraging.

In today’s Times, Javier Hernandez sets the counterpoint between DOE and education and immigrant advocates. He said that Angela M. Infante, deputy director of the DOE’s Office of ELL, suggested that “grim graduation rates were not the best metric on which to judge the city’s efforts.” But if not graduation rates, then what? The administration has repeatedly cited its obligation and desire to increase the high-school graduation rate and prepare students for post-secondary education and training. Either the buck stops at the graduation rate or it doesn’t.

High-school age language-learners represent 69% of new immigrants to the city schools. With one in four public school pupils born overseas, according to the DOE’s Deputy Chancellor Marcia Lyles, it’s hard to overstate the importance of educating kids born overseas. And with a 26 percent graduation rate, and a Regents diploma graduation rate of about 10 percent, the issue is not likely to fade from the public conversation anytime soon.

Starting next month, the DOE will test English Language Learners at every grade level to assess their progress toward English proficiency — measurements critical to each school’s Progress Report, and to non-native speakers’ success on Regents exams and eventual graduation. To date, the news is grim, with fewer ELL students graduating high school in 2007 (the most recent data available) than in 2005. Even then, only 26.5 percent, or just over one in four, language-learners graduated in four years. Less than one in ten 2007 ELL graduates earned a Regents diploma.

At a contentious hearing on Friday in the Bronx, services for language-learners took center stage — and earned the derision of Assemblywoman Carmen E. Arroyo, who accused the DOE’s Maria Santos of flat-out lying about increased resources for ELL students since the institution of mayoral control.

The New York Immigrant Coalition highlighted two dire ‘data points’ that deserve wider mention: First, only 5 percent of ELL 8th graders scored Level 3 — at grade level — on the statewide English Language Arts exam, a statistic that doesn’t bode well for high-school success. They also noted that the numbers of high schoolers plummet after 10th grade, when “nearly half of ELLs disappear from school rosters.” (Once students turn 17, they are not legally obliged to attend school. The NYIC says many are pushed out of school, drop out, or are redirected to GED and transfer/alternative high school programs.)

The Times‘ current focus on immigration in the nation’s schools and a report today on local success stories – that small fraction of kids who have made it to higher ed — should not mask focus on the 150,000 public school students who are not native speakers, or blunt attention to their profound needs, or the DOE’s responsibility to provide language, as well as academic, education.

Building on a Post story that ran on Monday, GothamSchools yesterday spelled out real concerns with the DOE’s high-price-tag contract with the Accenture consulting firm for efforts ostensibly aimed at savings. Back in November, City Limits profiled small book packagers – folks who develop and distribute materials critical to instructing New York City’s English language learners — whose businesses will close if the DOE’s plans to consolidate suppliers (in the name of savings) are carried out. It’s no stretch to understand the real need to trim expenses, but how are the myriad, polyglot students of New York served by shuttering the very minority- and women-owned businesses that exist to educate them?

The City Council was expected to take up the contracts issue in a hearing slated for Monday, March 2nd, which was canceled late last week (days before the snowstorm that shut the city’s schools). According to Council PR representatives, the contracts hearing will be rescheduled for April, although no new date has been set.

It’s terrific that more journalists are attending to the crushing effects of the DOE steamroller — consolidating resources to create savings, with ‘collateral damage’ that ends up putting New Yorkers out of work. But the issue that’s not getting enough play (yet), and the issue that floored me when I reported the City Limits piece, is the DOE’s deliberate exemption from Local Law 120 – which it claims as an entity under mayoral control and not under the city’s direct supervision. That exemption means DOE can essentially ignore legal directives enacted by Mayor Bloomberg to protect small and minority-owned businesses, in the name of savings.

What’s saved, here? What’s lost? How does this strategy serve the city’s students? All of these questions deserve answers, and careful, deliberate scrutiny by city leadership.

In a city like ours, with so many immigrant families and tens of thousands of students who are themselves first-generation citizens or born overseas, English Language Learners have long comprised a sizeable fraction of the city’s student body. Now, a national project published by Education Week characterizes the state of the nation (in state-by-state assessments) with regard to its immigrant, language-learning students, in the stupendously detailed Portraits of a Population, which readers can peruse for free via the EdWeek website.

For a home-town view of the challenges and satisfactions of working with ‘newcomer’ students, have a look here, for one teacher’s experience — and take your hat, beret, cloche, or watchcap OFF, in recognition of the effort, heart, and goodwill involved in knitting kids into the complicated American quilt.

A worried, back-to-the-1970s fatalism seems the mode du jour: ACS may fall deeper into debt or lose funding, doubts about funding for class-size reduction, and a bleak overall analysis that predicts regression over progress in city schools fill the daily papers.

Against this black canvas, the DOE announced yesterday $7 million for new programs for English language learners — 148,000 students citywide who, in addition to learning math, science and literature, have to (eventually) master English as well. Grants of up to $100,000 will be distributed to 110 city schools; funders include the DOE, the New York City Council, the UFT, and the New York Immigration Coalition Task Force.

All city schools are mandated to support students learning the language, although in practice, efforts vary widely, and outcomes are mixed . Overall, nearly as many ELL students drop out of high school as graduate — 28.9% vs. 30.8%, in 2007 — while former ELL students graduate at rates higher than citywide averages — 70.9% in 2007, vs. 60% citywide — and far fewer, less than 10%, drop out.

It may be just a tiny glimmer, but it’s a welcome glint of hope, just the same.

Chancellor Joel Klein has announced a new pilot program in 10 high-need grade schools to improve reading education, based on E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge curriculum (for reference, see his popular 1988 manifesto, Cultural Literacy, and the series of parent-focused education books that followed).

The K-2 program integrates phonics and content (no stranger to many early-grade classrooms), with an emphasis on nonfiction and classical sources, like mythology, as well as fiction. Reading gains for students in the pilot program will be compared with students in ‘control’ groups, who will participate in the current DOE reading curriculum.

Education academics and in-the-trenches teachers have long criticized the de-emphasis of phonics in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms. In fact, many teachers routinely include phonics instruction, especially in classes with large numbers of students who are learning English, in addition to the mandated DOE reading curriculum.

Private funds have been raised to pay for the program, which will cost $2.4 million. New York is one of eight cities nationwide to use its classrooms as test labs for the program, which is designed to give students a foundation of knowledge along with reading mechanics and eventual proficiency. Other sites include a mix of rural and urban schools (with mixed academic needs) in Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, and the South Shore Charter Public School in Hull, Mass., where Dr. Hirsch’s son is the principal.

It’s not known whether parents can opt in or out of the program (or the control groups) or how the 10 high-need New York schools were chosen. All are in the “outer boroughs” — four in Queens, three in the Bronx, two in Brooklyn, and one in Staten Island.

The State and the City finally released the 2007 high school graduation rate today, and the news is both heartening and discouraging, on more than a few counts.

First, the good news: The overall graduation rate continues to nudge upward from the swamp where it had long languished. For the city as a whole, 52.2% of students who started high school in 2003 (the 2003 cohort) graduated in four years. Another 3.6% graduated in August, via credit recovery and other recuperative programs (mention of which flummoxed the Mayor briefly at a press conference today). If this seems lower than the 60% that was so widely celebrated last year, it is — in years past, the city included GED-earners in the grad rate, unlike the State’s more stringent criteria, which the city now shares.

More Asian and white students continue to earn diplomas than their African-American and Hispanic classmates (bad news) but the gap between the races is narrowing — slightly (good news, but not that good): Nearly 71% and nearly 69% of Asian and white students graduate in four years; only 43% of Hispanic kids earn their diploma in the same time, as do just over 47% of African-American students. So while it’s true that grad rates are rising for African-American and Hispanic kids, it will be a long, long time before the academic playing field is even approximately equal. And demographics notwithstanding, boys continue to lag behind girls in academic achievement. But back on the good-news side, New York leads the state’s biggest cities in academic gains. On the bad-news side, the cities still lag well behind the state’s overall grad rate of 79.2%.

Less enthusiastic results were posted for English Language Learners, who Chancellor Klein identifies as “our greatest challenge.” ELL grad rates dropped in recent years and now have risen three points, to 23.5% for four-year grads and 32.4% for kids who stay in high school for five years (no typo on those stats). Students with disabilities showed slight change in their graduation rate (from 19.4% in 2006 to 19.1% in 2007. Good news, no drop; bad news, scant improvement.

The general tenor of the announcement this afternoon was celebratory but clear-eyed; the Mayor, sporting a spectacular tan, praised all involved, from Klein (also summer-bronzed) and Weingarten down into the academic trenches — teachers, principals, APs, parents, and of course the students, especially the kids who stick with high school into a fifth or sixth year. “That they didn’t do it in four years is immaterial,” said the Mayor, who added that staying longer in high school is “demonstrative of someone who wants to take charge of their life,” and graciously crediting Jennifer Medina’s Times story today as proof.

Still, Bloomberg acknowledged, “despite this heartwarming progress,” there’s “enormous room for improvement.” Notably, 38% of students don’t graduate in four years, and nearly 14% drop out. “It’s going to be very hard to get them back,” he said. (About 10% stay enrolled in high school beyond four years.) The dropout rate contracted slightly since last year, from 15% to 14.7%; we’re waiting for follow-up from the DOE on students who were discharged from school — and don’t show up in DOE records as students or dropouts.

Students now in high school can earn one of three diplomas — local, Regents, or Advanced Regents. About two-thirds of NYC grads earn a Regents diploma, which is good news — but not so good for the third who get less-rigorous Local credentials, and moot entirely for the kids starting high school next month, who are not eligible to earn the local diploma at all. We’ve asked the DOE for diploma and grad-rate details on the new small high schools and Career and Technical Education schools, and for more specific demographic and gender information — and we’ll report back whenever we hear more.

Let us know if you have questions; the State published a thick deck of data slides, and we’ll post links to specifics if there’s interest.

Update: A correction for clarity: The overall state graduation rate cited above, of 79.2%, reflects the grad rate for schools outside the state’s five biggest cities, and not the state as a whole. Regrets for any confusion.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Got any questions? Let us know.

This past winter, the DOE surveyed the city’s 1400 principals. And today, the results of the second principal survey were released, with steady improvements in many measures, including principal satisfaction with DOE support in attaining school goals, school support organizations, and DOE accountability measures. The 1000+ principals who responded (anonymously) also reported a slight decrease in satisfaction with professional development programs offered by the DOE’s Department of Teaching and Learning.

The first survey likewise highlighted many strengths — and identified shortcomings in certain critical areas, like OSEPO’s placement of special-education and English Language Learner (ELL) students and OSEPO’s response to admissions and placement issues (limited satisfaction, between 50%-53%). The current survey omits any OSEPO questions, making direct comparison from one survey to the next impossible.

The current survey is about a third shorter than the first, because principals objected to its length, according to DOE sources. Why decisions were made to omit certain subject areas, like OSEPO, and include others, related to school management and accountability, for example, isn’t quite clear. But given the prominence of OSEPO in the admissions confusion of the past couple of weeks (and ongoing, for plenty of parents), it would have been great to hear from principals, the proverbial leaders in the ‘trenches’ of academe, just exactly how OSEPO is doing.

Last week’s budget arguments continue to expand; this afternoon, the Alliance for Quality Education will protest the proposed $428 million cut, starting at 4 pm, at Stuyvesant High School. If you’re stuck at work, write your City Council representative. If you attend, let us know what you see and hear.

Meanwhile, public hearings will start later this week on 2008-09 Council For Excellence funds, the direction of which seem very much in question, given Klein’s desire to redirect C4E dollars to equalize budget cuts across the city’s schools. (See preliminary budget information here.) C4E moneys are legally mandated to target specific, high-need schools and high-need students, in six program areas — “class size reduction, time on task, teacher and principal quality initiatives, middle school and high school restructuring, full-day pre-Kindergarten, and model programs for English Language Learners” — a mandate that would be altered if Klein’s plan goes forward.

Public hearings will take place in Staten Island at New Dorp High School on June 5th; at IS 230 in Queens on the 10th; in the Bronx on the 11th, at DeWitt Clinton High School; in Brooklyn on the 12th, at Boys and Girls High School; and finally, Monday the 16th, in Manhattan, at Fashion Industries High School. The DOE also invites public comment at ContractsForExcellence@schools.nyc.gov. Let the powers that be hear from you.

Earlier this week, Helen posted about “Chancellor Klein’s no good, very bad morning.” One commenter immediately noted the allusion to the classic children’s book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day,” by Judith Viorst, saying that she reads the book to her own son Alexander when he’s feeling grumpy. Recently, the Times’ City Room blog ran a long post about the best kids’ books that use New York City as a backdrop, such as “Eloise,” “Harriet the Spy,” and “The Cricket in Times Square.” Readers weighed in with their own suggestions and sent me, at least, running to the library.

As we all work on our summer reading lists, help fellow Insideschools Blog readers out: What books do your kids most enjoy?

Many of us know that kids with limited English proficiency have limited high school options. But it’s a lot easier to understand what that means to immigrant kids and their families after reading Jessica Siegel’s article about Ralph Antony Toussaint, who arrived from Haiti in August at age 16, in the Village Voice’s education supplement this week.

For weeks this past fall, Ralph Antony and various members of his family ping-ponged around Brooklyn, encountering obstacles at the enrollment center and finding that several schools suggested by the DOE were too crowded to take another student or lacked the special English language instruction that a new immigrant would need. Eventually, it took the help of an advocate to get Ralph Antony admitted into overcrowded Clara Barton High School, which has a Haitian Creole dual language program.

No one should have to spend five weeks finding a high school, but at least Ralph Antony finally landed in a school that was right for him. A DOE spokesperson told the Voice, “If a school is sent a student from the enrollment center, the school should take him or her.” But several of the small high schools to which the enrollment office directed the family rejected Ralph Antony because they couldn’t provide him the services he needed. Last year, Advocates for Children Director Kim Sweet explained to the Citywide Council on High Schools that the DOE requires kids with special needs to go through the regular high school admissions process without having any assurance that their match will have the services they need. The DOE’s thinking in this situation appears to be similar, and kids who need English language services lose out.

(Incidentally, I know that I read this article last fall I read an article on the Voice’s website and for a while I tried to find it again to link to it, but it was gone. I guess holding articles for six months is one way New Times is cutting the Voice’s costs. It’s too bad, because articles like this one deserve to be seen.)

If you’ve never read the famous children’s book The Story of Ferdinand, today’s a good day to do so. That’s the featured book this year for Read for the Record, a national event designed to bring attention to Jumpstart, an organization that promotes early childhood education for low-income kids. Readings are taking place all day in various locations throughout the city; for details on locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn, check out the event’s website.

Yesterday, the Times profiled the debate among parents over the popular children’s series Junie B. Jones. Some parents like the 27-book series about a spunky little girl because their reading-resistant kids do, but others ban the books in their homes because the main character uses incorrect grammar. The Times bills this debate as a pedagogical difference, a “pint-size version of the lingering education battle between advocates of phonics, who believe children should be taught proper spelling and grammar from the outset, and those who favor whole language, a literacy method that accepts misspellings and other errors as long as children are engaged in reading and writing.”

But I think the Times might be looking at the wrong culture clash. Instead, I see the books’ publisher’s response to a complaining parent as neatly summing up the debate; Random House said that “books for children don’t always have to be educational to be valuable.”

At schools I’ve visited, I’ve met struggling readers who love Junie B. — they may even identify with her own language struggles, although as scholars point out, her “mistakes” actually correct irregularities in English. But they might just enjoy reading a book that’s fun. Kids spend a great deal of time on cut-and-dry, grammatically correct stories that resemble those they’ll see on standardized tests, and the high stakes of that literary form can’t do much to facilitate a love for reading. Kids deserve to cut loose every once in a while, as adults do, with some light reading. And with the rise of what teacher Barbara Feinberg calls “problem literature” — books about kids confronting very adult misfortunes — there’s value in just reminding kids that stories can make them laugh.

In the article, a sensible parent says she likes reading the books with her son, who enjoys them. “Sure, maybe Junie B. isn’t everyone’s cup of tea,” she said. “But when she does things wrong or says things incorrectly, it provides an opportunity to talk about how things should be.” Like all children’s books, the Junie B. Jones books aren’t meant to stand in for good teachers. But if parents are going to join schools in sucking the fun out of learning, then the books might have to stand in for them.

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.

For summer reading lists and activities, parents and kids can log on to public library websites that offer booklists for all ages, from babies to teens. The sites feature an interactive “detective’ game that builds kids’ research skills and timely notices of book talks and other local library events. The New York State site, http://www.summerreadingnys.org/, includes information and ideas for parents and the New York City site has links to the New York, Brooklyn and Queens library systems, http://www.summerreading.org/.

Yesterday NY1 reported on Chancellor Klein’s new plan to allow English Language Learner (ELL) students more time before requiring them to take standardized tests. Whereas ELL students currently have to take the tests during their first year in school (even students who haven’t yet been in the States for a full year), Klein plans to change that requirement, exempting those students from required tests for their first two years.

While I think Klein is probably correct to exempt ELL students from state tests, since those students hardly need to spend time taking exams that won’t yield meaningful results, I can’t help but be skeptical about Klein’s motivation for the change. ELL test scores are, of course, far below the citywide average, especially the scores of ELL students during their first two years of NYC public education. Therefore removing them from the test pool will probably result in a significant jump in test scores, giving the mistaken impression that test scores have greatly improved. With the end of Bloomberg’s administration in site, and mayoral control of the city’s public schools sunsetting in 2009, I can’t help but think this measure could be a last push to show test gains under the Bloomberg-Klein reforms.

Of course, I could be wrong– one could avoid the misleading test results by removing from past averages the scores of first- and second-year ELL students when calculating improvement statistics. Then the statistics would truly track how the same types of students were performing from year to year– comparing apples and apples– which is the only way to accurately measure the effects of school reform over time. We’ll see if the DOE takes this step, or if instead they forgo statistical accuracy for the sake of political gain and claim credit for a test gain that never occurred.