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Tom Allon may be a long shot in his quest to be the next mayor, but he has some fresh ideas about how to fix the city's schools. The publisher of Manhattan Media kicked off his campaign Wednesday with a speech at The New School that suggests a simple way to improve public schools: Help teachers perfect their craft. He proposes that teachers get training that's more like what medical students get. Instead of working…
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The New York Times recently ran the second piece in a series called A System Divided. The series aims to "...examine the changing racial distribution of students in New York City's public schools and its impact on their opportunities and achievements." The article, "Why Don't We Have Any White Kids?" is a great piece that among other things informs the reader that integration has been shown to have positive effects on young children. From my…
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New York’s Department of Education recently announced 24 city schools were given new names. About the same time, 5th-graders learned which middle school they were selected to attend. Combined, the two events might result in letters from DOE like this: Dear scholar (formerly known as “student”), We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to the Albert Einstein Academy of Integrated Sciences in the Rosa Parks Campus, formerly known as Middle School…
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With the permission of the chancellor, many New York City schools are hastily scheduling no classes on June 25 and 26, two of the final three days of the school year, choosing to convert unused “snow days” into two days of professional development for teachers. For the schools that choose this option, the last day of school will effectively be Friday, June 22, and not Wednesday, June 27, as originally scheduled. All New York City…
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I'm happy to report that what loomed large for my son at school a few weeks ago had nothing to do with the mandatory standardized 3rd grade ELA and math tests, and everything to do with LearningSpring's annual talent show. To our relief, the tests were given the appropriately small amount of attention they deserve. They don't drive the school curriculum, and their results will be refreshingly meaningless. We already know that my son is…
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Not only are the state tests confusing for the kids. Now teachers say they can't figure out how to score them. Long-time principals and teachers say they have never witnessed the level of confusion that has broken out in scoring sessions for the state math and English tests this year. Principals have received several emails with corrections to the scoring guide created by the testing company Pearson. More than 5,000 city teachers have been pulled…
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