A grant to create community schools makes strange bedfellows
The last time he led a New York City project, Geoffrey Canada, the founder of Harlem Children’s Zone, had the teachers union as his opponent. Now the two are partnering on a grant proposal that would take struggling elementary schools and surround them with the support services that barely exist outside their doors.
Naturally, the two have a buffer: Good Shepherd Services and the Children’s Aid Society, which is the lead applicant for an Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) grant — money that was set aside as part of the federal stimulus package. The grant proposal calls for $30 million to be used over four years to reduce absenteeism in nine schools in low-income neighborhoods like Harlem, the South Bronx, and Central Brooklyn.
All of the schools that are eventually chosen for the grant will have low-performing students, but they must also have a large number of students who don’t attend class. At least 30 percent of their students must be chronically absent, meaning they miss a month or more of school, hence the grant’s name: “Attend, Achieve, Attain,” or “a3.”
The idea is to keep more children in school for longer by lengthening the school day, adding after-school and
Remainders: Rhee doubling senior staff to raise school standards
- After a rough year, things are looking up for one of Miss Eyre’s students.
- A group of Bloomberg allies asked lawmakers to lift the charter cap and change tenure law.
- Colorado’s tenure-busting legislation moved forward very late last night.
- Diane Ravitch and James Merriman squared off on charter schools on Inside City Hall last night…
- …While UFT President Michael Mulgrew will appear on that program tonight. (No link)
- Civil rights groups are asking NYC teachers and school staff members to answer a survey about bullying.
- The Dallas teacher who campaigned to bring back “paddling” just got fired.
- Miss Brave profiles the 25 percent of her students who cause 90 percent of the problems.
- Michelle Rhee is doubling her senior staff in an effort to raise school standards.
- An argument that the education sector should take a lesson from the military.
- A South Bronx teacher gives some tips for boosting first-period attendance.
- A Duke professor who let her students grade themselves gives the experiment an A+.
- And happy Mother’s Day! A 12-year-old with Asperger’s interviewed his mom on StoryCorp today.
Joel Klein heading to Jerusalem to tout school reforms
A poster advertising the Jerusalem education conference where Joel Klein will be speaking.
Chancellor Joel Klein is leaving Saturday night for a two-day trip to Israel, during which he will argue that education reform is both possible and necessary at a day-long education conference hosted by Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat.
The last country Klein visited in his capacity as chancellor, Australia in 2008, adopted a New York City-style school grading system shortly afterward. Klein also visited the United Kingdom shortly before its education minister announced plans to adopt a similar school grading system, according to Department of Education spokeswoman Ann Forte.