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 ›

PS 361 in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn has been attacked by bedbugs for the 31st time in one year, further evidence that the Department of Education should start declaring "bedbug days" to clear the way for exterminators. more ›

The new "report cards" for New York City's public high schools are out (you can read them here) and they do not paint the prettiest of pictures for our city's students, especially considering the fact that education has been one of the biggest touchstones for the Bloomberg regime. According to the data only one in four students who enter high school in the city are ready for college after four years and less than half of those that are ready bother to enroll. Shame Mayor Bloomberg can't blame this on Cathie Black, eh? more ›

Finally, an answer to the age-old question: why are kids so fat these days? Because...[drum roll please]...schools aren't providing enough physical education. more ›

A right-wing nonprofit is not happy about the city's decision to mandate sex ed for all public school students, claiming, in an extremely roundabout way, that it promotes bestiality and S&M role-playing. Say what?! more ›

The high-ranking Department of Education official who was arrested in the winter and accused of sexually torturing his wife with hammers, nails and hangers has been found guilty of sexually abusing and assaulting his wife. Official Laurence Harvey, who previously made $165,000-a-year from his DOE gig, was not found guilty of raping his wife. more ›

The school year has started again, but classrooms may be lacking in essential supplies. With budget cuts hitting every possible part of city agencies (4,100 teachers jobs were threatened), the NY Times reports on how the "Teacher's Choice" program, which allowed teachers to get reimbursed for getting their classes ready, has been suspended for the foreseeable future. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg kept saying that he wanted to make it harder for teachers to get tenure without good test scores, and he wasn't kidding. This year just 58 percent of the teachers up for the coveted job security provided by tenure got it. Last year 89 percent of those eligible got tenure. At the same time, however, fewer teachers were outright rejected for tenure than last year with only 2.9 percent getting a no compared to 3.3 percent last year. The rest of the teachers have at least another year to shape up or ship out. more ›

Back in 2007, the city and teachers' union agreed to give bonuses to teachers whose schools show student achievement, which resulted in millions in payouts. But now the city is scrapping the program. Why? The NY Times reports, "The decision was made in light of a study that found the bonuses had no positive effect on either student performance or teachers’ attitudes toward their jobs." more ›

Lest a $65 million federal grant slip through their fingers, the NYC Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers agreed on teacher evaluations for those at troubled schools. According to the Post, "Under the agreement, teachers at the 33 schools -- all considered 'lowest achieving' -- will use a new state-approved system that rates teachers by four categories: highly effective; effective; developing; and ineffective." more ›

A Bronx teacher is suing the city's Department of Education, claiming that the principal of her school forced her to perform tasks that caused the stillbirth of her baby. Rachel Wolff, a tenured teacher at PS 246, believes that principal Beverly Miller "contributed to an environment where having a successful pregnancy became exceedingly difficult," her lawyer tells the Post. Because Wolff's pregnancy was considered "high risk," chores that involved "climbing flights of stairs, hauling heavy furniture, and cleaning the library" negatively affected Wolff's ability to bear a healthy child. The NIH classifies factors for high risk pregnancies as "young or old maternal age, being underweight or overweight, having problems in previous pregnancies," and having "pre-existing health conditions" like HIV, high blood pressure or diabetes. more ›

It isn't just elementary and middle school students who need lots of remediation, the State Education Department has released a trove of data that paints a disturbing picture of our high school graduates. In New York City just 21 percent of the students who started high school in 2006 graduated last year with test scores which indicate they ready for higher education. more ›

A whole lot of elementary school and middle school students, about 50 percent more than last year, are going to be hitting the books this summer according to the Department of Education. How many? An estimated 34,000, up from 22,800 kids last year, which was already more than double the number of kids enrolled in the summer of 2009. more ›

It isn't just the New York City Department of Education that has some suspicious and very expensive contracts, the New York State Department of Education has some curious deals of its own. Like the $27 million no-bid contract the Daily News reports on which was recently given to a News Corp. company that just happens to be overseen by former city Schools Chancellor Joel Klein. Nothing fishy about that at all! more ›

Computers are valuable things. They can store tons of information and they let you watch Gloria Estefan videos from the comfort of your apartment, with no one knowing anything about it until you inadvertently mention it on the World Wide Web. So you'd think that public schools would keep their supply of laptops locked up tight. Apparently that's not the case, because yesterday police announced that they had arrested a 17-year-old teenager for allegedly stealing over 100 laptops from public schools across the city. more ›

The head of the New York chapter of the NAACP has made headlines for bluntly excoriating the concerned parent of a charter school student. The background: The NAACP is part of the teachers' union lawsuit against the Department of Education, which wants to close 22 failing schools and open charter schools in their place. One concerned Bronx mom, Janette Ramos, recently emailed NAACP head Hazel Dukes to urge the NAACP to drop the lawsuit. "If you and the NAACP continue on this horrible lawsuit against my daughter's school and the fellow 18 charter schools, it will not be the best legacy to leave behind," Ramos wrote. The Post reports that Dukes's reply was swift and, well, to the point. more ›

Yesterday, U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that New York City public schools can prohibit religious worship services from its premises. The New York Law Journal reports, "Ruling for the fourth time in a decade on a lawsuit brought by a Christian church in the Bronx, the majority concluded that the rule does not constitute viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment because it 'does not exclude expressions of religious points of view or of religious devotion, but excludes for valid non-discriminatory reasons only a type of activity—the conduct of worship services.'" more ›

New York City may be home to an estimated 800 languages but when it comes to the New York State Regents exams, the only one that counts is English. Next week New York students will take Regents exams in Spanish, French and Italian for the last time. Why? The better to save $700,000, of course. Thank goodness the city is getting ready to replace the tests with new ones to better grade teachers! more ›

The Department of Education, meant to be one of the defining triumphs of Michael Bloomberg's mayoral career, has become a "fiscal black hole" with a serious consultant problem to the tune of $982 million, according to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. That title comes after yet another consultant-related financial scandal came out of the department. Turns out the former Chief Financial Officer of the DOE, George Raab, and several consultants used their time their to plot Raab's exit to a private financial firm, according to a report [PDF] from Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for the city schools. more ›

Hey, parents, get ready for your kids to cram: Due to Federal Race to the Top funding rules, the Department of Education is currently working on an additional series of tests for its students which, while giving scores to kids, will actually be testing teachers. Details are still being hammered out but the new system could mean up to 16 new additional tests, possibly administered in two parts, for students between 3rd and 12th grades. more ›

For a technocrat with an inarguably successful business track record, Mike Bloomberg's administration sure keeps having problems with scheming computer contractors. On top of the epic $80 million CityTime scandal and the $3.6 million the DOE last week revealed it lost to a "housewife-next-door" loving computer contractor, a high-level DOE executive is now under investigation for "potential corruption and conflict of interest" regarding his relationship with a consulting firm that has a $43 million contract with the Department. more ›

This week, Department of Education computer consultant Willard "Ross" Lanham was accused of stealing $3.6 million in kickbacks. But the story took a turn for the Bravo when Lanham's weird relationship with his live-in estranged wife, Laura Lanham, took center stage. And Lanham is perfectly alright with her cougarlife hogging the spotlight: "My life is already a reality show...You can't make this s--- up. My reality is surreal. It's crazy," she told the News. more ›