Big Education Ape: Rise & Shine: City wants to start layoffs with U-rated and ATRs

Rise & Shine: City wants to start layoffs with U-rated and ATRs

by Philissa Cramer

City schools fared worst in Mayor Bloomberg’s budget plan. (GothamSchools, Times, Daily News, NY1)
Areas where more teachers are new will feel the brunt of the cuts hardest. (Wall Street Journal)
Chancellor Klein writes that he wants to start layoffs with teachers rated unsatisfactory and ATRs. (Post)
Rick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute says higher class sizes won’t hurt students. (Daily News)
The Times blames Albany for the cuts but wonders whether so many teachers need to be laid off.
The Daily News says the teacher cuts show that state legislators aren’t putting children first.
Juan Gonzalez: A tax rule has banks making profiting from charter school construction. (Daily News)
A parent group is pushing for an alternative to school closures that helps struggling schools. (City Limits)
A Bronx teacher is putting his students to work on an urban farm in a food desert. (Daily News)
A team of Stuyvesant HS students, all women, won a prize for envisioning a bionic eye. (Post)
State Sen. Bill Perkins opposes some school choice, but voters have choice about him, the Post writes.
A handful of city private schools have dropped an admissions test whose scores keep rising. (Times)
Students at some schools are using virtual worlds to develop their business skills. (Times)

by Maura Walz

A debate is shaping up over whether Congress authorized Race to the Top. Politics K-12 weighs in.
Capital One bank is opening a student-run branch inside Harlem’s Thurgood Marshall Academy.
A “neighborhood schools sellout” explains her difficult decision to send her kid to a magnet program.
It will take $4 billion a year to get nutritious school meals to America’s hungry schoolchildren.
Britain’s Conservative Party is taking some inspiration from the KIPP charter school chain.
Colorado’s two teachers unions disagree over whether to support that state’s new tenure bill.
A parent tries to shield her seventh-grader against the trauma of HS admissions but it may be too late.
Mrs. Mimi plans to blog about the “Top 100 Children’s Novels of ALL TIME.” First up: The Egypt Game.
Just because a school isn’t ranked high doesn’t mean it’s not good, Chancellor Klein told Australians.