Remember back in April when the city and the United Federation of Teachers announced that by the end of the year teachers accused of misconduct would no longer be sent to the infamous "rubber rooms" (where they would collect their full salaries while sitting around)? The NY Times checked in yesterday and finds that for all intents and purposes little has changed. “There are indeed still rubber rooms,” one teacher accused of sexual harassment told the paper. “They just don’t call them that.” more ›

Yesterday, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Deputy Mayor for Education Dennis Walcott made the case for continuing mayoral controls of the public school system at a City Council Hearing. While the pair cited students' progress, reaction from Council members as mixed: NY1 reports that Councilman Peter Vallone said, "I appreciate that progress," (he did write an opinion piece for the Post back in September supporting mayoral control) while Councilman Charles Barron said, "I'll probably be mayor one day in this city, but I won't even want mayoral control. That's too much power. Too much authority for one person to have that's not an educator." And, according to Gotham Schools, Councilman Robert Jackson asked Klein and Walcott if they made any mistakes: "Walcott said that changing the bus routes in winter was a mistake, but Klein held firm on his decision to dissolve the 32 school districts that the Bloomberg administration has essentially done away with." A Council group is suggesting that the Council be given more power—which would be municipal control. more ›

Last night, the Panel for Educational Policy voted to approve, in an 11-1 vote, the end of social promotion for eighth graders in public schools. This means eighth graders who fail core classes or do poorly on standardized test will not be able to move onto high school. more ›