Back when we were in middle school in the city all of the students at our public school were required to take latin as our foreign language—which in retrospect was a clever way to both make sure nobody in the very multicultural school had a leg up and to teach some history not necessarily in the NYC curriculum. But now we're totally jealous of the kids at P.S. 368 in Hamilton Heights! Starting next year all of the 200 second- through fifth-graders at the school are going to be required to take Arabic twice a week for 45 minutes. It is the first school to require the study of Arabic, according to officials. more ›

Sure, global warming might be destroying the environment one arctic glacier at a time, but what are a few dead baby seals in comparison to getting an extralong pre-summer weekend? Today, the Times reported that many city schools will be giving students two days off before the official last day of classes, due to this academic year's unusually warm winter, which led to a lack of snow days. more ›

One way to deal with the problem of teachers who don't have permanent jobs in the Department of Education but can't be laid off thanks to their union contract? Buy 'em out. And that option is exactly what Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott proposed doing yesterday. Probably better than spending $100 million or so a year to keep them employed, which Walcott says we currently do. more ›

Teachers looking to talk to their students on Facebook should think twice. The Department of Education has just released its first guidelines for social media. The short of it? Don't. "In this digital era, the lines between professional and personal endeavors are sometimes blurred," the guidelines intone, before going on to recommend that teachers reject friend requests from their charges. more ›

The battle against childhood obesity continues, with...breakfast? A number of the city's public schools have joined cities like Los Angeles and Chicago by serving breakfast in the classroom, providing children from low-income families with a meal they might not have at home. Breakfast has been offered in all public school cafeterias for a while, but in-classroom meals served to all students is seen as a way to make all kids get the most important meal of the day. more ›

With a rash of Department of Education employees being arrested for inappropriate behavior—the Department's special commissioner of investigation has received 248 complaints of sex abuse in 2012, up 35 percent over the same period last year—parents keep asking why teachers with questionable history are still getting to work in classrooms. A series of reports released thanks to a Freedom of Information request now provides one partial-answer: Unions. more ›

An assistant principal of a Bronx elementary school was arrested earlier today for two counts of sexual abuse. 59-year-old Joseph Ponzo, who has worked at PS 106 in Parkchester since 2008, allegedly fondled two students, ages 10 and 11, on their chests and over their shirts, on March 27. more ›

A 12-year-old boy is claiming that his teacher at I.S. 399 in the Bronx taped him to a chair for 20 minutes during class last Friday. Since the incident the boy—who says he was strapped to his seat after he'd gotten up to help a classmate with a math quiz—has not returned to school and the teacher has been taken out of the classroom while the Department of Education investigates. more ›

Earlier this week, we were pretty shocked/saddened to learn that the Department of Education had made up a list of words that were no longer acceptable for city-issued standardized tests. Y'know, words like birthday, poverty and dinosaurs. Then we got a look at the full list, below, and our response turned to horror. Cancer? Bodily functions? Homelessness? Ugh. more ›

Taking tests has gotten even more soul-crushingly boring for city students. The Post reports that the Department of Education has banned topics like birthdays, poverty, and dinosaurs to avoid angering specific religious groups or making students feel "uncomfortable." No word on whether entire science units on magnets have been scrapped for fear of confusing young Juggalos. more ›

"Pink slime" is getting the pink slip at New York's public schools, just as Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer wanted. The meat product (the industry calls it "lean finely textured beef" and uses it as filler in ground beef) has been much in the news lately, with everyone from Safeway to McDonalds and Taco Bell responding to public pressure and saying they're getting rid of the soylent pink. So back to dog food it goes! more ›

The nation's second-largest supermarket chain has stopped selling what the meat industry calls “lean finely textured beef," more popularly known as “pink slime.” The substance, which is a low-cost filler made from fatty scraps of beef left over from cuts typically thrown away, is not allowed to be used in human food in the UK, and fast food chains such as McDonalds and Taco Bell have discontinued its use. But NYC schoolchildren are still getting slimed, and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer wants it to stop. more ›

Last month, in the midst of a spate of school employees being accused of sexual misconduct, Department of Education Chancellor Dennis Walcott promised a thorough review of school employees to make sure nobody with bad history was still working with kids. Well, that review happened and now eight school employees are in hot water. more ›

A Bronx principal was removed from her job yesterday after the Department of Education released a 113-page report that identified testing fraud and transcript tampering. According to the Times, Lynn Passarella created an environment at the Theater Arts Production Company School (Tapco) where only three percent of the grades were failing. Overall the school reacted to the change with "relief," except for those who will miss the lawless days. "It was so easy to cut class," a ninth grader lamented. more ›

Another day, another New York City teacher arrested for inappropriate behavior with their students. Yesterday a Manhattan ROTC instructor at a Hell's Kitchen high school was arrested on charges he inappropriately touched a 14-year-old girl on school grounds earlier this month. Darryl Lynch, 55, was charged with forcible touching, acting in a manner to injure a child and sexual abuse. more ›

On Friday the city released its controversial teacher evaluations with the caveat that "The purpose of these reports is not to look at any individual score in isolation ever." So naturally, that is exactly what everyone has done. Now, with a weekend to absorb the data, an interesting fact has emerged. Lady teachers rock. more ›

It isn't just teachers getting arrested in our schools. According to new data released by the NYPD [PDF], an average of five students were arrested every day in the city's school system last fall, and nine more were issued summonses. Things look especially bleak for black students who, despite comprising only 29 percent of the student population made up 60 percent of the arrests (add in Latino students and the number climbs to 90 percent). The news led Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, to again point out that "If the Bloomberg administration is truly serious about helping young men of color succeed, then they must address these disparities and focus more attention on educating children—not arresting them." more ›

The Department of Education's Special Commissioner of Investigation found that Queens fifth-grade teacher Melissa Dean "used the students in her class to send handmade holiday greeting cards to her friend, John Coccarelli, who is a convicted felon serving time in the Groveland Correctional Facility in upstate New York." Coccarelli is serving time for a weapons charge and for violating an order of protection... and was once charged—though not convicted—with child pornography possession. Which leads to this finding from the Special Commisisoner: "Dean suggested that the students write personal information on the cards, including their names and addresses, and she printed the name of the student on the back of his or her card." more ›

Upper West Side parents are not taking the news that there may have been a pedophile working at the highly-regarded P.S. 87 well. After fuming all weekend over the arrest of teacher's aide Gregory Atkins, 56, nearly 500 parents took to the school yesterday to assail Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott over the mess. "Are our kids safe here?" one father reportedly demanded to know. When told they were he retorted, "How do you know?" more ›

Mayor Bloomberg's response to groups upset they've been forced to stop holding religious services out of schools? Deal with it. After being backed up by federal courts, New York finally kicked religious groups out on Sunday and Mayor Bloomberg was not apologetic about it. But unlike when he was talking about pedophiles in schools, Bloomberg seems on the right side of this argument. more ›

No wonder Mayor Bloomberg's response to a teacher's aide possibly sexually abusing students in a Brooklyn public school was to essentially say "deal with it." PS 243's Taleek Brooks wasn't the only teacher's aide with boy troubles this week. Turns out a teacher's aide at the very well-regarded Upper West Side school PS 87 has also been accused of sexually abusing his charges. more ›

A teacher who was fired for saying on Facebook she'd like to see her "devil spawn" fifth grade students drown still wants her job back—and a Manhattan Supreme Court judge is on her side. But the city? Not so much! more ›

Turbines in the East River and garbage dump windmills aren't the only way to bring renewable electricity to New York City. Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer continues his early mayoral campaigning today with a proposal [PDF] to cover our city's schools with solar panels. more ›

Following the release of Mayor Bloomberg's hit list of 19 schools that "just don't do the job," it behooves the ones who survived to shape up or face the impending municipal axe. Or, cut back on reporting things that would get you there. Parents and former employees of the Lower East Side's Marta Valle High School are claiming Principal Mimi Fortunato is attempting to play down the number of violent altercations and lax attendance policy to avoid closure. "See how I get a drink?" one truant student told a Post reporter outside the school. "If there was discipline, I'd be in class." more ›

Food prices keep going up, sure, but some of this is absurd! In its second audit this month related to food in the city, the Comptroller's office has called out the Department of Education for not being careful with its food contracts—with costly results [PDF]. Like, for instance, with the distributor who charged the DOE the same amount to deliver cases of "Beef - Gyro Strip" as it did to deliver cheaper and lighter cases of "Eggplant, breaded." And it goes on. After the audit, the Comptroller's office went and smacked down a Department of Education contract that inexplicably jumped $20 million dollars in a year! more ›

"These aren't marginally bad schools or non-performing schools," Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday regarding the list of schools the Department of Education wants to shut down or truncate this year. "They just don't do the job, this is no question they're not doing the job." In a two-part process the city released a list of 19 schools that are facing execution at the end of the school year—including one Manhattan school with a violent rep that included an assault on a pregnant woman—as well as six schools that may have their middle school grades removed. "This is about student performance, student outcome, making sure we improve our schools and making sure students are college ready and career ready," schools chancellor Dennis Walcott assured parents today. more ›

Are you dying to see how many emoticons former Schools Chancellor Cathie Black used in her thank-you emails to Mayor Bloomberg shortly before taking office? Thanks to a FOIA request and a judge's ruling, those puppies will be open for our perusal in 15 business days or less. Former Village Voice reporter, Sergio Hernandez, who's now with ProPublica, applied for the emails last year and was rebuffed twice by the city because "releasing them would violate someone's (although nobody said whose) privacy." According to the Daily News, in a ruling yesterday Judge Alice Schlesinger called that logic "particularly specious" because Black and her staff at Hearst were "de facto agents of the city." more ›

According to new data released by the NYPD [pdf], an average of one student is arrested every day in the city's school system, and three others are issued summonses. During summer school from July through September, four students each day are arrested, and 94% of those arrested are black or Latino, and 83% are male. "The data raise concerns about black students being disproportionately arrested in the city's schools," Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the NYCLU says in a release. "If the Bloomberg administration is truly serious about closing the achievement gap, then they must address this disparity and focus more attention on educating children—not arresting them.” more ›