Thursday, August 8, 2013

8-8-13 Perdido Street School

Perdido Street School:



New Times-Siena Poll: Quinn, Thompson, De Blasio
From the NY Times:Christine C. Quinn is leading the crowded field in the Democratic primary race for New York City mayor, lifted by support among Manhattanites and higher-income voters, the latest New York Times/Siena College poll finds. But just over a month before the Sept. 10 primary, Ms. Quinn is still well below the level needed to avoid a runoff, and many voters remain undecided.Ms. Quinn, t

Bill Thompson Calls For Christine Quinn To Release Legal Documents From Slush Fund Investigation
Thompson and Quinn continuing to go at each other:Bill Thompson’s mayoral campaign is calling on opposing mayoral candidate City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to release legal documents from a federal investigation into the City Council around five years ago.The “slush fund scandal” was revealed in news reports in 2008 alleging city funds were being allocated to non-existent “phony charities” an

State Audit Finds NYSED Commissioner King And Regents Chancellor Tisch Conduct Almost No Oversight Of For-Profit Career Schools
Looks like the accountability-meisters at the NYSED and the Regents don't care all that much about accountability for the for-profit career school sector: A host of private career schools have been operating without state licenses because of “alarmingly little oversight” by state education officials, state Controller Thomas DiNapoli says in a new audit. The audit, obtained by the Daily News, also
Bill Thompson Says He Will Add "Trust" To Contract Negotiations
From Azi Paybarah at Capital NY:Right before Bill Thompson began a press conference to discuss New York students' plummeting test scores, outside a high school on East 56th Street, an English teacher named Ethel Richards walked by, then stopped.Richards, who lives in Brooklyn and works at Frederick Douglas Academy VI in Far Rockaway, told me and a couple of other reporters who were standing there
Anthony Weiner's Sexting Partner Endorses Christine Quinn, The Nation Endorses Bill De Blasio
Not sure this endorsement helps either Weiner or Quinn:Anthony Weiner’s sexting gal pal Sydney Leathers is wading into the mayor’s race once again.In an interview with Complex, Ms. Leathers, the self-professed “political junkie” who traded racy messages and photos with Mr. Weiner long after he resigned from Congress, enthusiastically endorsed City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for mayor.“Obvious

How Success Academy Fared Against Other Renowned Charter Networks
I posted earlier today about the miraculous statistics Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy Schools garnered on the new Common Core tests.Scores across the state plummeted on the 3rd-8th grade ELA and math exams, but Eva Moskowitz's Success Academy schools bucked that trend with some amazing scores:There were some charter networks that boasted victory — like the aptly named Success Academy Charter Scho

Just How Did They Get To Be So Successful At Success Academy?
Yesterday before the Common Core test scores were released, Gotham Schools offered a handy guide for what to watch for:Here was the first of those items (emphasis added):Where are the outliers? All scores are expected to be low, but some will be lower than others. And some will almost certain fall by much less than the average. Identifying those outliers will be a first step in telling the story o

Startling Statistics From The Common Core Tests
From the NY Times:On the English exam, 3 percent of nonnative speakers were deemed proficient, and 6 percent of students with disabilities passed. Essentially, if you are an ESL student or a student with an IEP, you will not pass the Common Core exams.Can't wait until they change the high school Regents exams.As things stand now, we've already seen some support services students forced to sit for

  Business Leaders Speak To New Yorkers About Common Core
Buried near the bottom of the NY Times article on the Common Core tests is this doozy:New York’s bleak scores could prompt unease among elected officials who have staked their reputations on rising test scores. “For educators and parents who aren’t crazy about testing to begin with, one can understand why they feel like they’re being subjected to bait-and-switch,” said Frederick M. Hess, an educat
8-7-13 Perdido Street School
Perdido Street School: Joel Klein, The Man Who Hawked Inflated Test Scores As Chancellor, Lectures People About Inflated Test ScoresYou can't make this stuff up.Here's the former NYCDOE chancellor and current head of Rupert Murdoch's for profit education technology division, Joel Klein, lecturing people about how inflated New York's test scores were in the past:For years, states around the country