Is it time for New York City Charter Schools to be absorbed into a redesigned New York City School System? | Ed In The Apple

Is it time for New York City Charter Schools to be absorbed into a redesigned New York City School System? | Ed In The Apple

Is it time for New York City Charter Schools to be absorbed into a redesigned New York City School System?

Twenty years ago Governor Pataki bundled a salary increase with a charter school law in a lame duck session of the state legislature. Has the law achieved its purposes? (See NYS Charter School Law here).

The law established two authorizers, the State Education Department and SUNY. The State Education Department created Charter School Frameworks. (See Charter School Frameworks here)

The charter school law requires charters schools to:

* Improve student learning and achievement;

*Increase learning opportunities for all students, with special emphasis on expanded learning experiences for students who are at-risk of academic failure;

*Encourage the use of different and innovative teaching methods;

 * Provide schools with a method to change from rule-based to performance-based accountability systems by holding the schools established under this article accountable for meeting measurable CONTINUE READING: Is it time for New York City Charter Schools to be absorbed into a redesigned New York City School System? | Ed In The Apple

September 21 School Opening and Unanswered Questions: Requiring Vaccinations, Remote Instruction, Teacher Accommodations, Summer School and “Catching Up” | Ed In The Apple

September 21 School Opening and Unanswered Questions: Requiring Vaccinations, Remote Instruction, Teacher Accommodations, Summer School and “Catching Up” | Ed In The Apple

September 21 School Opening and Unanswered Questions: Requiring Vaccinations, Remote Instruction, Teacher Accommodations, Summer School and “Catching Up”

As the COVID positive rates continue to spiral downwards and the vaccination numbers increase the State is moving towards a full school opening. Broadway can reopen on September 14th, large sports venues allowing larger and larger crowds and school districts are planning full reopening: with a host of issues to be resolved.

Will school districts retain a remote instruction option?

In NYC, for a subset of medically fragile children: maybe. It is highly unlikely that individual schools will operate in-person and remote; it is too complicated and there are other options. For example, children seeking remote option can be clustered in a district-wide remote school. The Department and the Union will partner in an in-person school initiative.

Can COVID vaccinations be required for students?

The NYS Department of Health currently requires vaccinations for school enrollment. See details here. 

Across the nation many states have vaccination requirements, and, in some states there is virulent opposition by anti-vaxxer parents. Some states have religious and medical exemptions. The decision would be made at the state level and it is highly unlikely for this September; a year or so down the road when vaccinations for children are available the state may develop policies..

 Can COVID vaccinations be required for CONTINUE READING: September 21 School Opening and Unanswered Questions: Requiring Vaccinations, Remote Instruction, Teacher Accommodations, Summer School and “Catching Up” | Ed In The Apple

Will NYC Create a Thoughtful and Effective Plan for the Billions of Education Dollars or Waste on Mindless Testing and Remediation? | Ed In The Apple

Will NYC Create a Thoughtful and Effective Plan for the Billions of Education Dollars or Waste on Mindless Testing and Remediation? | Ed In The Apple

Will NYC Create a Thoughtful and Effective Plan for the Billions of Education Dollars or Waste on Mindless Testing and Remediation?

I was biking up Third Avenue in May, no cars as far as I could see, New York City was a ghost town. The pandemic was rampant, subways and buses empty, the cities revenue stream had ended …. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months.

Would the city go bankrupt?  (Read here)

Were we facing another 1975?  Widespread teacher layoffs? (Read here)

Candidate Biden becomes President Biden, the assault on the Congress fails and the Biden Rescue Plan becomes law.

Half of New York City is vaccinated and the number of vaccinated New Yorkers continues to grow.

The New York State legislature passes a budget that fully funds education, the fight over Foundation Aid is over.

Mayor de Blasio releases his Executive Budget, which he calls his Recovery Budget – worthwhile watching here.  The City Council has to approve the budget, the Council and the Mayor will negotiate and likely approve by mid-June.

The NYS Education Department has to submit a plan specifying how the Rescue Plan dollars will be utilized in the state. The Plan is due June 7th, see the Fact CONTINUE READING: Will NYC Create a Thoughtful and Effective Plan for the Billions of Education Dollars or Waste on Mindless Testing and Remediation? | Ed In The Apple

John King is Running for Governor of Maryland (probably not supported by NYS teachers) | Ed In The Apple

John King is Running for Governor of Maryland (probably not supported by NYS teachers) | Ed In The Apple

John King is Running for Governor of Maryland (probably not supported by NYS teachers)

John King, the former Obama-appointed US Secretary of Education and the highly controversial Commissioner of Education in New York State announced he is running for governor of Maryland; the current governor, a republican, Larry Hogan, is term-limited. King will be facing a number of others in the democratic primary..

As some of you are aware, pre-COVID, I traveled to Albany each month and attended the Board of Regents meetings, I tweeted, blogged, wrote memos, sort of a journalist/citizen lobbyist, and I observed and occasionally talked with the commissioner; he is both brilliant and totally dedicated to recasting education, however; you cannot impose change.

The New York State Board of Regent is a seventeen-member policy board elected by a joint meeting of the legislatures, effectively selected by the speaker, the democratic leader of the Assembly; the Board selects the head of the State Department of Education, the Commissioner. For decades the Board was made up primarily of non-educators, usually business leaders with roots in their communities; however, in 2009 the Regents elevated Merryl Tisch, a member of CONTINUE READING: John King is Running for Governor of Maryland (probably not supported by NYS teachers) | Ed In The Apple

Will the Teacher Union (UFT) “Select” the Next Mayor (and other electeds) in New York City? | Ed In The Apple

Will the Teacher Union (UFT) “Select” the Next Mayor (and other electeds) in New York City? | Ed In The Apple

Will the Teacher Union (UFT) “Select” the Next Mayor (and other electeds) in New York City?

On June 22 registered Democratic voters will go to the polls to select the Democratic candidates (and probably the November victor) for Mayor, Comptroller, Boro Presidents, District Attorneys and 37 of the 51 member City Council; a sweeping change in the governance of New York City.

You may be going the poll a week earlier (Early Voting) or cast your absentee ballot, and, you can “rank” up to five candidates (See a detailed explanation of the mechanics of the election here).

The teacher union, the United Federation of Teachers, is endorsing virtually every position on the ballot, and, has dramatically changed their endorsement process.

Rather than the union leadership choosing candidates local committees made up of school union leaders (“Chapter Leaders”) recommended candidates  (all endorsed) and the other offices Zoom interviews with thousands of teachers participating, and, casting preference on-line ballots.

On Monday, April 19th the UFT Delegate Assembly will endorse a mayoral CONTINUE READING: Will the Teacher Union (UFT) “Select” the Next Mayor (and other electeds) in New York City? | Ed In The Apple

Is Canceling “High Stakes Testing” More Important than Halving Childhood Poverty? | Ed In The Apple

Is Canceling “High Stakes Testing” More Important than Halving Childhood Poverty? | Ed In The Apple

Is Canceling “High Stakes Testing” More Important than Halving Childhood Poverty?

Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist , calls our nation “a beacon of failure,”

“The U.S., with its cherished image as a land of opportunity, should be an inspiring example of just and enlightened treatment of children. Instead, it is a beacon of failure,”

“Though an average American childhood may not be the worst in the world, the disparity between the country’s wealth and the condition of its children is unparalleled.”

Our childhood poverty rate is 19.9 percent, the highest among all developed countries, except Romania.

President Johnson’s “War On Poverty” offered hope; however the Republican Calvinist approach, “helping” the poor would only reinforce poverty, prevailed. 

The Biden initiative, the American Rescue Plan reverses half a century of ignoring the “truly disadvantaged” and offers hope for abandoned Americans.

 Nick Kristoff in the New York Times writes,

  Today one of our saddest statistics is this: American children ages 1 to 19 CONTINUE READING: Is Canceling “High Stakes Testing” More Important than Halving Childhood Poverty? | Ed In The Apple

How would you recommend spending the billions of American Rescue Act dollars? Everyone seems to have ideas(s). | Ed In The Apple

How would you recommend spending the billions of American Rescue Act dollars? Everyone seems to have ideas(s). | Ed In The Apple

How would you recommend spending the billions of American Rescue Act dollars? Everyone seems to have ideas(s).

New York City will be deciding how to spend billions of education dollars within the next few months, and, everybody has ideas.

The interim chancellor (the term used for superintendent in New York City) immediately suggested summer school, as did many others (including the new law). The law also says the dollars must be spent on “evidence-based” interventions: a challenge.

The evidence that summer school is effective is slim and discouraging.
. 

Research studies done before the pandemic show that summer school usually don’t accomplish its purpose of raising reading or math achievement. 

 “Generally, summer programs are not effective because they don’t really engage young people and they’re not run well,”

Even if the evidence is discouraging we’re going to have summer school: will it be the same old review and remediate (“boring”) or an interesting program that excites kids?   I would suggest summer school is project-based. Spend the last two weeks in June selecting a project and the summer working on a standards- CONTINUE READING: How would you recommend spending the billions of American Rescue Act dollars? Everyone seems to have ideas(s). | Ed In The Apple

Will New York City Reimagine Education or Waste a Generational Opportunity? | Ed In The Apple

Will New York City Reimagine Education or Waste a Generational Opportunity? | Ed In The Apple

Will New York City Reimagine Education or Waste a Generational Opportunity?

We’ve been told for decades we can’t do anything about poverty, we can’t change property tax-based school funding, and we have to use our teaching skills to raise achievement.  Sadly states and school districts have relied on top-down edicts and standardized testing, teacher voice is absent.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, two Democratic Senators are elected in Georgia and President Biden’s American Rescue Plan is law.

The plan attacks childhood poverty. We may be the richest country in the world, we have turned out back on children.

  ,For more than half a century, we have failed to address child poverty in this country. This neglect has resulted in negative outcomes on child well-being and threatens our nation’s future. A child who grows up in poverty is far less likely to perform as well as their classmates in school, more likely to have food insecurity, more vulnerable to homelessness, and more likely to be subjected to violence, abuse, and neglect. While the United States proudly leads the world in science, technology, innovation, and sports, we sadly also leader in infant mortality, violence against children, and child poverty. Despite lots of expressed concern for children, our nation’s leaders have failed make needed investments in child well-being.

The Organization for Economics, Culture and Development, (OECD) studies the forty plus industrialized nations and takes a deep dive into the question: does income poverty affect child outcomes 

Childhood Poverty in the OECD?

The links between family poverty and subsequent child outcomes have been CONTINUE READING: Will New York City Reimagine Education or Waste a Generational Opportunity? | Ed In The Apple