Tuesday, June 22, 2010

As budgets are cut, advocates push for continued free lunch | GothamSchools

As budgets are cut, advocates push for continued free lunch | GothamSchools

As budgets are cut, advocates push for continued free lunch

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City Councilman Brad Lander speaks at a rally today to oppose school lunch cuts. (Courtesy: Lander's office)
Last month, city officials announced a plan to save $3 million by reducing the number of students receiving free lunch next year. Today, elected officials and child advocates struck back from the steps of City Hall.

Web of lies led one student to city’s most coveted arts schools

The city is cracking down on a New Jersey family that illegally enrolled their daughter at two of the city’s most competitive public schools.
Jill Schifter and Anthony Maulello’s daughter won a spot in the Professional Performing Arts School in 2005 and was accepted to the ultra-competitive drama program at LaGuardia High School two years later. But according toa report released today by Special Commissioner of Investigations Richard Condon, Schifter and Maulello live in North Bergen, N.J., not New York City, meaning their daughter wasn’t eligible to attend the schools.
Investigators responding to an anonymous tip last fall found that the couple had briefly placed utilities accounts

Report: KIPP middle school students outperform district peers

KIPP middle schools across the country enroll more low-income, minority students than their district school peers, yet their students have higher test scores, according to a report out today.
The report, from Mathematica Policy Research and commissioned by the KIPP Foundation, studies 22 middle schools in the KIPP charter network, four of which are in New York City. Its findings show that on average, KIPP middle school students have higher reading and math scores than their peers in district schools. It also suggests that students at these middle schools are outscoring their peers by greater margins than students at other New York City charter schools.
The report finds that, in some ways, students at KIPP middle schools arrive with more disadvantages than the district students the report compares them to. They’re more likely to be low-income and minority and in half of