Friday, June 11, 2010

Remainders: Look to Brooklyn for hot pre-k and gifted programs | GothamSchools

Last year’s cue-card incident cost UFT’s political chief his job | GothamSchools

Remainders: Look to Brooklyn for hot pre-k and gifted programs





Last year’s cue-card incident cost UFT’s political chief his job

Remember that time when we caught the teachers union prompting City Council members with cue cards? Barraged with criticism, then-union president Randi Weingarten said she regretted the lobbying tactic and pledged on television to “make some changes in the union.”
I never figured out what the changes were — until today. After the incident, Marvin Reiskin, the union’s political director, retired. He was due to leave at the end of the year, anyway, but the retirement happened a month or so

Details on city’s plans to improve failing schools delayed a week

More than thirty schools waiting to hear how they’ll have to change under a federal program targeting low-performing schools will have to wait longer.
The federal government is giving New York State $308 million to help fix its lowest-performing 5 percent of schools, 34 of which are in New York City. To receive the funds, school districts must explain to the state which of four pre-approved models of school improvement they plan to use. The city’s plans were originally due today, but they’ve been delayed as city and teachers union officials haggle.
“While we work to finalize labor issues, we’ve been granted a one week extension on our application,” Department of Education spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld said. “Given the wide variety of schools involved, we want to make sure we have as many options as possible to fix these struggling schools.”
One major issue is whether the union contract limits which of the four models can be applied to schools. City officials have argued that the only model that does not require that teachers lose their position — the so-called