After opting in, KIPP staff vote themselves out of teachers union
KIPP New York City's logo, from its web site.
Middle school teachers at a KIPP charter school in Brooklyn asked the state this week to let them split from the city teachers union, more than a year after teachers at the same school voted to unionize. The union plans to fight the decision, saying that a group of teachers remain committed to becoming United Federation of Teachers members.
Sixteen staff members signed the petition to break from the UFT. The petition was spearheaded by a guidance counselor named Dameon Clay, his attorney said. Staff who signed the petition include classroom teachers as well as social workers, the dean of teaching and learning, an operations manager, and the office manager.
I couldn’t reach any of the teachers for comment, but Lyle Zuckerman, the attorney representing Clay, said the decision was a judgment about how the teachers could best help themselves and their students. “I think they’ve come to the conclusion that their goals and the educational mission of the school is just going to best be served by them having a direct relationship with the school’s administration,” Zuckerman said.
A school day in East New York: bright students, bored restless
Where can you find the most bored children in New York?
Last week I visited P.S. 13 in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, a school where you would expect to see some anxiety before the high-stakes English exam that will be given next Monday. Instead, I met a cast of bright and precocious students plodding through test prep worksheets with little supervision.
P.S. 13 has been a troubled school for years though its last city-issued progress report calls it a “B” school. In 2004, it managed to remove itself from the state’s list of school at risk of being closed, but it’s now in danger of landing back on that list. Students know a lot is riding on their test scores. During my visit, many could rattle off the dates of the upcoming tests from memory.
Morning announcements over the loud speaker included test tips like encouraging students to get a good night’s rest and eat a full breakfast (84 percent of P.S. 13 qualify for free or reduced lunch). In advance of the test, the regular schedule had been altered so that on Thursdays students only focused on reading and writing and Fridays were math-only days.
I visited on a Thursday. In classroom after classroom, students in yellow shirts and blue bottoms sat hunched over “Comprehensive Assessment of Reading Strategy” and “Strategies to Achieve Reading Success” workbooks, which are published by Curriculum Associates. Some read the questions aloud to themselves and
Remainders: At Brooklyn’s P.S. 13, boredom, restlessness rule
Last week I visited P.S. 13 in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn, a school where you would expect to see some anxiety before the high-stakes English exam that will be given next Monday. Instead, I met a cast of bright and precocious students plodding through test prep worksheets with little supervision.
P.S. 13 has been a troubled school for years though its last city-issued progress report calls it a “B” school. In 2004, it managed to remove itself from the state’s list of school at risk of being closed, but it’s now in danger of landing back on that list. Students know a lot is riding on their test scores. During my visit, many could rattle off the dates of the upcoming tests from memory.
Morning announcements over the loud speaker included test tips like encouraging students to get a good night’s rest and eat a full breakfast (84 percent of P.S. 13 qualify for free or reduced lunch). In advance of the test, the regular schedule had been altered so that on Thursdays students only focused on reading and writing and Fridays were math-only days.
I visited on a Thursday. In classroom after classroom, students in yellow shirts and blue bottoms sat hunched over “Comprehensive Assessment of Reading Strategy” and “Strategies to Achieve Reading Success” workbooks, which are published by Curriculum Associates. Some read the questions aloud to themselves and
Remainders: At Brooklyn’s P.S. 13, boredom, restlessness rule
- Anna Phillips inaugurates a new series of school portraits with a trip to East New York’s P.S. 13.
- More unions are pulling the plug on support for their states’ round-two Race to the Top applications.
- Arne Duncan recently seems to have dropped out of the public RttT conversations, Politics K-12 notes.
- Mayor Michael Bloomberg blasted State Sen. Bill Perkins over his charter school stance.
- Leonie Haimson points out that Perkins is one of many Harlem politicians critical of charter schools.
- Peter Murphy of NYSCA: comptroller audits would be too infrequent to make charter schools accountable.
- A federal grant will mean 20,000 new computers for low-income city sixth-graders next year.
- One school’s test prep: an ELA pep rally featuring superheroes and the Beyonce hit, “All the 3’s and 4’s.”
- Jay Mathews: the story that Garfield HS went downhill after teacher Jaime Escalante left is myth.
- A new law will force schools to report how much time their students are required to spend in gym.
- Colorado charter school teachers won a free speech case against the school’s principal.
- Andy Rotherham says Aspire Public Schools should be brought in to run the closing Stanford charter.
- And Kim Gittleson is building an interactive map of NYC schools and wants your help.