NYC Schools Chief Resigns, Leaving Lasting Legacy
Joel Klein, who ran the nation's largest school system for eight years, will be replaced by publishing executive Cathie Black. (November 9, 2010)
On the Web: Read previous coverage at spokesman.com/tags/ secret-tax-deals, where you can also download new filings in the case.
BOISE – Three education groups are seeking to join Rep. Shirley Ringo, D-Moscow, in her lawsuit over secret tax deals by the state Tax Commission, saying the alleged deals are causing education funding in the state to suffer.
“We take the allegations very seriously,” said John Rumel, general counsel for the Idaho Education Association, one of the three groups. “The representative’s allegations indicate that because of some sweetheart deals and corrupt practices, a substantial amount of funds that should be going into the coffers of the state are not getting there.”
In addition to the IEA, the Idaho Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of Teachers local from the University of Idaho all have filed motions to intervene in the case as plaintiffs. The UI
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most profitable Wall Street firm, will lend $25 million to a nonprofit community-development organization to finance 16 charter schools in New York City and New Jersey.
The nonprofit group, Local Initiatives Support Corp., will make the money available to the school operators during the next two years, Goldman Sachs and LISC, both based in New York, said today in a statement. The chairman of LISC, according to the group’s website, is Robert E. Rubin, former U.S. Treasury secretary.
Charter schools are nonsectarian, public institutions that operate independently of local boards of education in the U.S. under special charters. Goldman Sachs’s Urban Investment Group has
New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein stepped down today after eight years on the job and will be replaced by Hearst chairwoman Cathie Black. In the coming days, we’ll see many assessments of Klein’s legacy; what’s clear is that he succeeded in projecting an image of order, organization and improvement in the nation’s largest public school system, which educates 1 million children and employs 80,000 teachers. Klein oversaw the establishment of about 100 new charter schools; broke up large comprehensive high schools into smaller, themed schools; and raised the on-time high school graduation rate to 60 percent from about 44 percent in the class of 2004.
What’s less clear is how well-prepared the typical New York City public school grad is for higher education or the workplace; much of the district’s proudly touted gains on state tests disappeared earlier this year when New York declared the tests too easy and recalibrated proficiency rates. On NAEP, the only national test of students’ skills, New York City fourth-graders have improved modestly, but eighth-
TRENTON — Governor Christie has lashed out at a northern New Jersey school superintendent for seeking to extend his contract before a salary cap ordered by the governor goes into effect.
Christie repeatedly singled out Parsippany Superintendent Lee Seitz by name at a town hall event Tuesday, calling him the "new poster boy for all that is wrong with the public school system."
Seitz is seeking a five-year contract extension that would see his annual salary rise to $234,065.
Under the new pay scale that starts Feb. 7, superintendents would earn up to
LOS ANGELES — Colleagues of Rigoberto Ruelas were alarmed when he failed to show up for work one day in September. They described him as a devoted teacher who tutored students before school, stayed with them after and, on weekends, took students from his South Los Angeles elementary school to the beach.
When his body was found in a ravine in the Angeles National Forest, and the coroner ruled it a suicide, Mr. Ruelas’s death became a flashpoint, drawing the city’s largest newspaper into the middle of the debate over reforming the nation’s second-largest school district.
When The Los Angeles Times released a database of “value-added analysis” of every teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District in August, Mr. Ruelas was rated “less effective than average.” Colleagues said he became noticeably depressed, and family
