You must be living under a rock if you haven't heard about the significant school budget cuts that the DOE made last week. In addition to the $324 million that schools will need to cut from their budgets next year, principals were also lost 1.75 percent of this year's budget — before they could...
A 5th-grade boy raised his hand on our last middle school tour and posed a question that took everyone aback. It reminded grown-ups in the room what it must feel like to be 10 or 11 years old, contemplating your educational future. “Is it easy to make friends at this middle school?’’ the...
Last night I went to the first of five public hearings held by the DOE about the proposed new system for handling pre-K and kindergarten admission. I was surprised that there were no more than about three dozen parents there but the DOE did just announce the policy at the end of last week. Read...
With troubling news about school budgets percolating (more on this later), let's focus this morning on the city's exceptional students. Four students at Stuyvesant the most at a single school and one at Bronx Science were among the 40 national semifinalists in the prestigious Intel Science Talent...
Last week, the DOE released results of the Principal Satisfaction Survey that it said proved that principals are happy as clams. Of course, we know the truth is a little more nuanced, and as Diane Ravitch noted after speaking to a number of principals at an event, many principals were hesitant to...
Tonight, supporters of the Khalil Gibran International Academy are holding a "an evening of celebration and support" for the school, which continues to be troubled a semester after it opened. Earlier this month, the DOE finally announced a permanent replacement for original principal Debbie...
Hey everyone! It's been quite some time since I last blogged, mainly because all has been quiet on the high school frontier for a while now. I am currently waiting for the results of the specialized high school exam, which are due back next week (somewhere around Feb. 6), to tell me whether or...
Would you wait in the cold at 4:30 a.m. to sign up for more classes with your elementary school science teacher? That's what parents fromPS 261 in Brooklyn did this past week when Carmelo Piazza, known in the neighborhood as "Carmelo the Science Fellow," opened registration for the 8-week summer...
It always surprises me how my fellow students always seem to take much more moderate and pragmatic positions on many of today's more controversial education issues than I would expect. At last week's New York City Student Union meeting, the issue that came up was mayoral control of NYC schools,...
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...
If you care about the mayor's proposed 8th grade promotion policy, tonight's Panel for Educational Policy meeting is your first chance to make your voice heard. (You'll also be able to speak out on the promotion policy at a series of public hearings in February and March; see the Insideschools...
We all know that overzealous security guards can be a problem in schools, but I didn't think the issue extended to kindergartens. Apparently it does. When a 5 year old at PS 81 in Queens had a tantrum which presumably had something to do with him being 5 years old a security guard handcuffed him...
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...
Looks like parents at PS 40 and PS 116 in Manhattan are taking the advice of Robert Pondiscio and the legions of parents who would do the same thing if they could find enough allies and boycotting some of the testing mandated this year by the DOE. The parents are upset that their kids were...
Who knew I was already right when I hypothesized two weeks ago that the DOE was hoping to change the way teachers are evaluated? Well, besides Eduwonkette, who left a comment telling me so, and at least 140 principals whose teachers are already being judged according to their students' test...
Speaking of scaling down big plans, it looks like the state will be giving the city's schools $100 million less this year than originally planned in new money. Citing budget constraints, the state is backing down on the amount of money, secured as a result of the 13-year Campaign for Fiscal...
The DOE makes a lot of noise when it rolls out a new initiative but it does a good job of staying quiet when it scales them back. The Post reported this past weekend that the science test planned for grades 3 and 6 will not be offered this year after all, at least not for the vast majority of...
With so much to worry about on a daily basis gifted and talented screening, middle school admissions, the barrage of standardized testing it can be easy to lose sight of the larger reality that schools can help move society toward racial and economic equality and that they also can hold society...
More details are emerging on the mayor's new plan to "end social promotion" in 8th grade. According to the New York Times, the 8th grade rules are "stricter" than those already in place in grades 3, 5, and 7 because students will have to pass all of their core subjects as well as score a 2 or...
What is our role, the students' role, in our society? As it stands now we are the constant object of the education discussion sentence. My English teacher told me (and mind you, this was last year... in my junior year of high school) that a simple sentence contains three parts: the subject or...
It's been a couple of years since the mayor added another grade to the list of those in which a failing grade on either state test requires a child to go through the holdover process, but in his "State of the City" address today, Mayor Bloomberg announced that next year, 8th grade will join...
In Insideschools' most recent college advice column, our counselor noted that guidance counselors in many high schools are responsible for so many students that they often are unable to give each kid the attention he or she deserves. I recently heard from a father who said the same situation...
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...
Lunch at 8:59 a.m.? That's what some kids at Richmond Hill High School are scheduled for -- so they've taken to drinking water all day to feel full. In today's "On Education" column in the Times, Sam Freedman continues his crusade against overcrowding in the city's few remaining comprehensive...
This letter, signed by Dana O'Brien, was published last week in the New York Times. As a public school student myself, as well as on behalf of the New York City Student Union, I would like to commend Assemblyman Mark Weprin on his public statement on the overemphasis on high-stakes testing in...
The Post today has a little more information about charter schools opening this fall. It looks like the Board of Regents is approving a dozen new charter schools: four in Queens, three in Manhattan, three in the Bronx, and one more that is still trying to settle its location. Here are three...
Prospective and current middle school parents might want to question math curriculums more aggressively. What topics are covered and what kind of background and training does your child's math teacher have? Chances are the answer to both questions could be not enough. A new study, Mathematics...
It's too easy to say that this is the DOE's way of shortening the school-to-prison pipeline, right? Update 1/12: That was fast. After lots of negative feedback, the city has abandoned the plan.
Since the DOE has demonstrated that it will do whatever it wants, a good way to predict future DOE initiatives is to pay attention to what DOE officials say ought to be done. So when DOE bigwig Christopher Cerf participates on a panel about the "dismal" state of teacher evaluations and decries...
Can we stop testing now, Chancellor Klein? New York rates the highest among all 50 states in a new Education Week report that looked at education funding, policy, and student achievement. What's that? "The state's rating would have been even better without the lower student-achievement scores of...
Some parents are threatening to sue the DOE over the changes to the G&T admissions policy, according to an article in Crain's New York (subscription required). "We feel that redress in the courts is really the only way to get out the message of what the DOE is doing," a PS 166 parent who sits...
In Brooklyn today the DOE announced the permanent replacement for Debbie Almontaser, the inaugural principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy who resigned just before the start of the school year. Holly Reichert, who replaces interim acting principal Danielle Salzberg, taught for one...
Never mind that today is the start of the elementary grades state ELA exam — what school cancels Monday classes over the weekend? Bronx Preparatory Charter School, apparently. Maybe it was snowing yesterday in Bronx Prep's corner of Morrisania because the school's Board of Trustees canceled...
We're entering crunch time for elementary school students preparing for the state ELA exam. It's being given on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday next week, and of all of the dozen tests over the course of the year, it (along with the state math exam in March) has the highest stakes for kids and...
It’s nearly halfway through the year. Have you spent at least half the money that your PTA has raised? Raising money is not easy, but spending money well can be at least as big a challenge. You have to decide and then research exactly what you want to buy, work with teachers and principals to...
If you're like me, you're having trouble getting back into the workaday routine. Here's something to hasten your return: If you want to have your child to be considered for admission to Gifted and Talented programs in kindergarten, 1st, or 2nd grade for the fall, tomorrow (1/3) is the deadline to...
The Post's Yoav Gonen kicks off 2008 with a status update on the cell phone ban. He notes that the bill the City Council passed in July and then reaffirmed with an override of the mayor's veto in September allowing kids to carry their phones to school is now in effect. But it won't make a...
Earlier this month 45 of you answered a poll about what you consider the best source of information about New York City's public schools. As I hoped and expected, most of you (68 percent) said Insideschools is your favorite source — but I was a little surprised that the DOE came in second, with...
One teacher who hasn't totally taken the week off is NYC Educator; he's been blogging away. Today he takes aim at the culture of school as work that led PS 15 in Springfield Gardens to schedule optional 5-hour test prep sessions daily over winter break, as the Daily News reported earlier this...
Nestled in a Times article yesterday about the pedagogical values of graphic novels was the information that fans of the genre tried to start a comics-themed high school but were not approved by the DOE. I'm not sure if I feel better to know that there is some limit as to what school themes are...
Although the city's schoolchildren aren't heading back to their classrooms for another week, I'm back to work. I'm thinking there won't be too much school-related news until 2008 -- even the DOE wouldn't roll out a new initiative between Christmas and New Year's, right? — so for the next few...
The state has released its own list of elementary and middle schools in good standing and in need of improvement under No Child Left Behind — and the news isn't great for the city or its progress reports. The state removed 18 city elementary and middle schools from the list but added 64,...
The DOE proudly announced earlier this week that 86 percent of the schools given the option of accepting performance pay this year chose to. Thirty-four eligible schools chose not to participate. (The percentage would have been slightly lower had the DOE not included the additional schools it...
When the progress reports first came out, many, including Regent Merryl Tisch, were not happy that charter schools did not get grades. Chancellor Klein said he didn't have the authority or the data to issue grades for charter schools. But now the city has issued grades for more than a dozen of...
The DOE has just announced "new measures to improve transparency and detail in class size reporting." Using improved means of data collection, the DOE will start publishing class size reports so parents can know on a grade-by-grade, school-by-school level how large classes are. Now that sounds...
Anyone who thinks the New York Times has been soft on the DOE in recent years should take note: Sam Freedman is on the job. His column today addresses the question of "How a Middle School Can Be 'Dangerous' and Still Get an A." Freedman takes a look at South Bronx Academy for Applied Media, which...
Anyone who expects to come away from a New York City public middle school tour with a “THIS IS THE PLACE FOR MY KID†feeling should adjust expectations. I’m told this does happen to some parents – and to some kids – who feel instantly comfortable after brief visits. It just has not...
I've been meaning to note for the last week an interesting article in the Times about CUNY's Model City Council program. Kids from around the city, drawn from those enrolled in College Now courses, learn about city governance, represent their districts, and debate the same issues as the real City...
This past spring, when the state lifted the cap on the number of allowed charter schools, you could hear prospective school operators salivating. Now some of the first charters have been granted under the new cap. Eight schools chartered by SUNY will open in the fall; all are part of existing...
There are only two more nights, but you should still know that this week the DOE is holding presentations about the new Gifted & Talented admissions policy in the seven languages for which the DOE provides translation services. Tomorrow there will be presentations in Haitian Creole, Bengali,...
“Did you get anything back?’’I posed this question to my 7th-grade son the other day. I hated the nagging tone of my voice. I’m sure he did too. After all, I’m constantly asking how he did on the math test, the science project, the Spanish quiz. Wouldn’t it be better if I asked,...
