Results tagged “chancellorjoelklein”

Last month, a Queens kindergartener was handcuffed after a temper tantrum at PS 81, prompting his parents to threaten a lawsuit. Now a lawyer representing Dennis Rivera and his parents reveals they are filing a notice of claim against the city for $15 million.

After a parents of a rejected student filed a class action lawsuit, the Department of Education asked a federal judge to overturn a 1974 ruling that set in place quotas to keep the school 40% minority and 60% white. The DOE wants the court to overturn the ruling immediately so the 2008-2009 will be quota-free.

One of the Stuyvesant High School students seriously injured in last Saturday's Vermont van crash has returned home to New York. Junior Lucia Hsiao, a member of the girls' junior varsity track team, had suffered serious neck injuries but was able to "gingerly walk" to her room on her own. The Staten Island resident is wearing a halo around her head and will require a lot of rehab, but her dad said, "It could have been worse. She's done with the first step of recovery."

Yesterday, the Daily News revealed that an East Harlem high school principal told teachers to effectively pass more students. Principal Bennett Lieberman's report card stated: "If you are not passing more than 65% of your students in a class, then you are not designing your expectations to meet their abilities. You are setting your students up for failure, which in turn, limits your success as a professional...most of our students ... have difficult home lives, and struggle with life in general. They DO NOT have a similar upbringing nor a similar school experience to our experiences growing up."

City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein characterized last year's assessment test scores as "good," but critics say that they represent a lack of progress and a failure of Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to reform city schools. City kids' scores stayed flat on national assessment exams in math and reading, with a slight improvement in 4th graders' math scores and a drop in 8th graders' reading scores. "New York City’s eighth graders have made no significant progress in...

The city is showing the door to a daycare facility that has called P.S. 122 its home for 26 years. The Children's Liberation Daycare Center (CLDC), which serves 88 kids between the ages of 2 and 6, is going to court later this month to object to its ejection from the building, with no plan for the daycare center's return. The CLDC shares P.S. 122 with three arts organizations and it's the city's Dept. of...

Oh, Catholic League - it isn't even Halloween and you're getting ready for Christmas already! The Sun reports that the Catholic League sent a letter to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein questioning why nativity scenes cannot be displayed in schools.

Debbie Almontaser, the erstwhile head and founder of Brooklyn's Khalil Gibran International Academy, will sue the city for violating her freedom of speech. She also claims Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein forced her to resign as principal under threat of closing the dual-language school.

Back in March of 2003, Mayor Bloomberg opened up the City Hall Academy at the Tweed Courthouse. The school offered two-weeks "residencies" for students, giving them an "inter-disciplinary approach" to learn about NYC and its history. Mayor Bloomberg, who made education reform one of the cornerstone of his mayoral platform (it's a big part of his "national" persona, too!), had said, "The opening of City Hall Academy demonstrates our commitment to excellence, achievement, and innovation in the public school system. City Hall Academy will provide New York City children and their teachers a unique opportunity to study and participate in the cultural and historical fabric of the City.”

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is many things. He's the head of the largest public school system in the country, he's a lawyer (he was a former Assistant Attorney General - biggest case: going after Microsoft) and he's a businessman (he was chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann). But who knew he was someone who should appear on The Colbert Report?

After the Daily News revealed that a school officials actually forbade school deans to call 911 (in order to lower crime stats) only for a 14-year-old student who suffered a stroke to wait 90 minutes for medical attention, the Department of Education is launching an investigation. The News now reports that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein will launch a probe, saying, "We'll look into it and take appropriate action."

Students of all ages are headed back to classes this morning. The NYC public school system is opening its doors this morning all over the city. Insideschools reminds us there are 1.1 million students and 150,000 educators in the system - and that quite a few charter schools have been open since last week!

While the jury is still out on whether Mayor Bloomberg's improvements to the public school system have really worked, he, along with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and School Chancellor Joel Klein, announced new initiatives to help middle schools improve academic performance and provide better resources for students, parents, and teachers alike - plus $5 million to fund them. The money will go to the 50 lowest-performing middle schools, so they can staff up with guidance counselors, offer mentoring programs to less experienced supervisors, and offer Regents-level classes.

Mayor Bloomberg loves the arts and supports many arts and cultural institutions as a (billionaire) philanthropist. And yesterday, he made sure that NYC public school students get a chance to love the arts as well, by introducing ArtsCount, a way to make sure schools and their principals are offering arts programs "through accountability and quality improvement initiatives."

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein offered his opinion of the Brooklyn school situation that raises questions about racial quotas set in place 33 years ago. Eleven-year-old Nikita Rau was rejected from the competitive IS 239/Mark Twain School in Coney Island because her admissions test scores were too low: Her 79 was lower than the 84.4 average score minority students need; white students may be admitted with scores of 77 or lower.

If you have kids, we sure hope they like taking tests. Not only do they face regular tests in classes, but the city is set to expand their regimen of periodic tests for the 1.1 million students in the city's public schools. The tests, which the city is paying $80 million over five years for, will be administered 5 times a year for students in the grades 3-8 and four times a year for high schoolers. Students in the 3-8th grades are only taking periodic tests 3 times a year now, while high school students don't take them at all. While the tests currently cover only math and English, they will be expanded to include science and social studies. The new system will also allow for faster feedback on student performance and for administrators to track teacher and student progress.

Governor Spitzer and other state leaders finalized this year's budget, to the tune of $121.8 billion, just in time for tomorrow's deadline. While Spitzer has touted greater transparency with public process, the budget deal has been notable for negotiations taking place behind closed doors. The Times Union had Spitzer's opinion on the secrecy, "Do we all wish there had been more public articulation? You bet," but "said a 'wide chasm' between his plan and the Legislature's had to be bridged somehow." In other words, the Legislature didn't want to be steamrolled.

The Daily News' series, School Bus Disgrace, is nothing short of amazing. There's just tale after tale of questionable behavior by school bus drivers - and that doesn't even include the drivers who have been convicted to convicted of attempted murder and other crimes.

It's always great when surveys confirm what we know, because then it helps make us seem a little less crazy. amNew York reports on the NYC Transit Rider Council's bus survey that shows buses are typically 5 minutes and 15 behind their published schedules. The culprit is traffic and congestion that causes "bunching," which is when "one, two, or even three buses arrive at the same stop almost simultaneously." Another interesting finding: Some buses' signs say "Not in Service," "Subway Shuttle" and "Evacuation Center" even when they are running on their regular route!

school begins seems to have settled down. The Department of Education apologized for the umpteenth time and even Mayor Bloomberg admitted that the changes didn't go very well (he did emphasize the savings were worth it). Of course, it's questionable how much the DOE will save after this mess.

s fourth grade English exam. The NY Times takes up the cause, outlining the fight between parents and exam officials about how the exams overall might just be too nutty and stupid for their own good. Okay, not exactly in those words but if you listened to the passage, "Why the Rooster Crows at Dawn," you'd realize that it kind of does suck. Reading it is another matter, but the kids only got to listen to it twice. The story is mostly about a rooster in a barnyard with other barnyard animals, but a lot of the questions are about Brownie the cow! One student gave his memory of the question:

"I didn't think the test made that much sense. I felt good and confident when I was going to take the test. I listened to the story about the rooster (I couldn't look at it). They read it twice, I took all the notes I could and once I got to the big question I only had one thing I had recorded about the cow. I felt terrible. I didn't have the information to answer the question. I thought I had made a mistake, how could I have missed the information about the cow?"

- Look, Sleeping kitty!

Did the sidewalks and subways seem a little more crowded this morning? See more yellow school buses? That's because New York City public schools are open for the 2006-2007 school year. This year, the Department of Education is continuing to change, most notably with one-fifth of school principals becoming more autonomous (aka "empowerment schools") - they'll have more oversight over budgets, no more superintendents, but needing to meet DOE's performance goals. Here that principals with supers? You're empowered.

It's an ending fitting for Broadway, except in this case, Broadway is East Tremont Avenue. The students at Lehman High School will be able to perform their high school musical, Chicago, when city officials intervened on their behalf. Their sob story about being served a cease-and-desist by the guardians of Chicago's rights and licensing struck a chord in the hearts of many who realized it would be a great press op: Saving the drama club hearts of youngster pitted against Broadway money men. We love a good story, too, but Lehman High School's actions seem more disingenous, for example, their 24 year old drama teacher Anthony Cerini transcribed the movie - plus found some stuff on the Internet and wrote some of the script on his own - for them to use in the musical. Well, then, hey, that's original material - but poor Fred Ebb must be rolling in his grave (hey, someone needs to get a quote from John Kander!) And just where is the music coming from? After we conducted an informal straw poll of drama club geeks, they were shocked and upset that Lehman never asked for permission, as that's what makes and breaks many high school productions each year (and why lots of schools do Peter Pan).

The Department of Education meant business when they started their new random scanning system - cops found a knife, boxcutter and some mace at the Acorn High School in Brooklyn. Plus the scanning set-up made a kid run away only for the cops to find that he had pot on him! But the real haul was 129 cellphones (and 2 iPods), which Schools Chancellor Joel Klein says the kids will get back. Cellphones have been banned since 1988 in NYC public school systems, but many parents believe they are critical in knowing their kids are safe and are even threatening civil disobedience in order to have their kids pack some portable communications. Klein says he understands, but, hey, when kids are taking pictures in locker rooms and cheating on tests, parents need to understand - and parents can always call the office. Ha! We're sure the office workers will love that. If school officials want to keep this ban, they should at least give kids a chance to call or email their parents during the day. Or maybe parents should microchip their kids.

After this weekend's big NY Times article about NYC's Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's "rethinking" of how to makeover the public school system, the Department of Education announces that schools would be graded each year. Plus, parents, teachers and students will have to complete satisfaction surveys that will enter into the analysis. What's interesting is that the DoE will concentrate on schools' teast scores as a barometer of success; from the Times:

Mr. Klein and his aides said the most critical factor in deciding the schools' grades would be how individual students' test scores improve from one year to the next. So, for example, a school where students make great strides but do not ultimately score on grade level could receive a good grade, while a school in which most students are on grade level could get a low mark if their test scores do not improve from the year before.

Uhm, are we the only ones loving the whole public school amnesty story over at the Department of Education? As if it didn't start off juicy enough: Last month the principal of Brooklyn Tech was pushed out under revelations that he and his wife had faked their address so that their daughter could attend a top Brooklyn elementary school although the couple lives in New Jersey. McCaskill quickly retired and the city did not seek any disciplinary measures.

What the hell is happening in Queens? Two women were attacked by the same man yesterday morning, while a man fleeing someone was shot in a diner. In the first incident, Queens reading teacher Jill Brogan was outside PS 86 in Jamaica when Frank Cabrera demanded her purse. Brogan only had keys to a Dodge Durango SUV and handed them over, and Cabrera took them but knifed her twice in the abdomen anyway. He drove off, abandoned the car at the Queens Supreme Court, and then tried to steal nurse Patrice Klein's car. A court officer stopped Cabrera, who had already punched Klein in the eye, and he was taken into custody. All this unfolded within a half hour! Brogan is recovering at a hospital; teachers union head Randi Weingarten criticized Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg for not visiting Brogan there.