Randi Weingarten, who has led the United Federation of Teachers, the union that representing over 200,000 people who work in the schools (from teachers to nurses), was elected to lead the national teacher's union, the American Federation of Teachers, yesterday. Weingarten ran unopposed and has made it clear she wants to revoke the No Child Left Behind law, suggesting instead that schools should help the entire family, through a range of social services, to improve......

Mayor Bloomberg's announcement that he would reduce the number of parking permits for civil servants by 20% has annoyed yet another group. Joining police officers, fire fighters, and other emergency workers are teachers. Teachers union president Randi Weingarten sent Mayor Bloomberg a letter to call the permit limits"deeply disturbing." Weingarten complains that teachers actually have too few permits. United Federation of Teachers vice-president Michael Mulgrew told the Sun that teachers end up making "informal deals"......

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......

Mayor Bloomberg and United Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten announced a new plan rewarding teachers whose schools improve student achievement. Two hundred high-needs schools will be eligible for the program, and if the schools improve, then the bonuses will be distributed through a committee to the teachers. Mayor Bloomberg called the agreement a "breakthrough." Weingarten has long opposed "individual merit pay," but she likes the new plan because a committee, made up of the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a water main break on Pacific St. in Brooklyn, an armed robbery on Jamaica Ave. in Queens, and a burn victim on West 165th St. in the Bronx. Spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy reportedly accomplished many feats during his life, but still died at his home in Queens, NY. A fight among members of a group of men, who were turned away from a Chelsea nightclub because they didn't meet......

Well, this is disturbing: The City Comptroller's office audited ten high schools in the city and found that they did not report 41% of the violent/disruptive incidents that occurred. Schools are supposed to file information about incidents, which range from vandalism to assaults, through a computer system so the state has the information, part of the No Child Left Behind law. The state then uses that information to determine which schools are dangerous, persistently dangerous,......

Mayor Bloomberg, Schools Chancellor Klein, City Council Speaker Quinn, and other city and school officials celebrated the first day of school yesterday with an appearance at P.S. 53 in the Bronx. P.S. 53 was selected because it will be receiving almost a half million dollars more in funding, due to Bloomberg's "fair student funding reforms." The Mayor happily said, "We are becoming the poster child for what you should do with a school system that's......

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......

The Post updates the story about the kid whose mom wants him held back a year! Anthony Hassell's father Victor Raimo called Post reporter Chuck Bennett to complain about his estranged wife's tactics discussing their son's 60.53 seventh grade average. Raimo said, "A normal mother doesn't do this, especially when she is a dropout of her own. My son shouldn't be embarrassed - it should be her." But the kicker is that Raimo called from......

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......

Randi Weingarten=Sandra Froman? Mayor Bloomberg had some fighting words for those who criticize his handling of the public schools. He compared his critics to the National Rifle Association: "You always do have the problem of a very small group of people who are single-issue focused having a disproportionate percentage of power. That's exactly the NRA." He also accused the UFT of wanting to roll back reforms:There's the political power of people who just want to......

The city is giving IBM an $80 million contract to create a supercomputer to track public school students. Accrding to the Daily News, computer's program will be called "ARIS" - "Achievement Reporting and Innovation System" - and will be able to track a student's biographical details, education needs, education history, test scores, etc., and provide up-to-the-minute information. From the News:The [interim tests student take will] measure whether kids have mastered specific skills, such as multiplying......

In the Mayor's Mid-Year Management Report, data shows that public school crime is up 21% between July and October2006. Three hundred forty eight major crimes were counted, vs. the same period in 287. The biggest increase has come from grand larceny - there were 197 more in the July-October 2006 period vs. 119 in J-O 2005. The Mayor's criminal justice coordinator John Feinblatt said, "There are more laptops, there are more Blackberries, there are more......

The Reverend Al Sharpton announced the "shopping for justice" protest march he's been talking about since the shooting of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman, and Trent Benefield by the police."Many will be shopping for trinkets and toys. We will be shopping for justice and making a moral appeal to this city and this nation. The fact that we are going on probably the most visible street in the world tomorrow, you don't have to talk......

The Department of Education will start to close five struggling high schools beginning next September. The schools are Urban Peace Academy and School for the Physical City in Manhattan and Samuel J. Tilden, South Shore, and the embattled Lafayette in Brooklyn. The DOE attributed the closings to, as the Daily News put it, "dismal graduation rates, consistently low test scores and lackluster demand." The NY Times notes that four of the high schools were "run......

It took the city and teachers' union three years to agree on their last contract - with the teachers working for two years without one. So, for the next negotiation, it looks like things have gone a lot more swimmingly, as the city and teachers union have tentatively agreed on a new deal. The new contract has wages increase 2% during the first year and 5% during the second, with minimum salaries rising to $45,530......

Officials all over New York got some bad news yesterday: Reading and writing scores of students drop dramatically between fifth and sixth grades. State Education Commissioner Richard Mills said, "Despite improvements in elementary school over the past several years, the Grade 3-8 results show substantially lower achievement starting in the sixth grade. The neediest children require more support. The problem is literacy in the middle grades. These results demand improvement in curriculum, instruction, and professional......

Transport Workers Union president Roger Toussaint enjoyed freedom yesterday, and showed it by defiant speech slamming the MTA's desire to restart contract talks and wanting to fight the Taylor Law. Toussain't point about the Taylor Law is picked up by the NY TImes, "The law doesn't have any consequences for employers who negotiate in bad faith or fail to resolve contracts in a timely manner." Oh, snap, Peter Kalikow! But Mayor Bloomberg is upset with......

If you're going to protest going to jail after leading an illegal transit strike for three days, then you might as well with the Reverend Al Sharpton, teachers union head Randi Weingarten, and about a thousand other supporters. And according to plan, many members of various unions are starting to view Roger Toussaint as a martyr, versus the main guy who inconvenienced the city (well, it's him and MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow). Toussaint headed......

Public schools have a terrible records with their students and bathrooms. If it's not inadequate bathroom supplies like toilet paper in the stalls, it's making students clean up other kids' poo. Oh, yes. WNBC reported that two six year olds at a Bronx charter school were punished by the principal for misbehaving, their penance being to clean up a mess another student made in a bathroom. The children's parents claim that their sons had to......

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......

"And, like, these really annoying kids, you know, the Democrats? Like, they will not get off my back! I mean, I'm going to win this election, 'cause I'm the richest kid around...I just want to say, 'Listen, yo, I'm taking you down...'": Gothamist's imagining this conversation Mayor Bloomberg with some students at Queens Vocational High School in Long Island City. Seriously, how must it be to sit next to the Mayor at lunch? Probably difficult......

A public school social studies teacher who resigned after it as discovered he aas moonlighting on the professional wrestling circuit is being asked to pay back the city for faking sick days when he was competing. This is so not fair - back in Gothamist's day, our teachers never got to wear crazy costume and call themselves "Matt Striker"! The NY Times speaks with Matthew Kaye, the man behind "Striker," who is trying to get......

More so than crime, the booming city economy, and the West Side stadium, the sleeping dragon in this year's mayoral race is education. The Mayor's ambitious plan to overhaul the Department of Education (including attempts to reduce class size by breaking up schools and implementing the third- and fifth-grade wide tests) have been met with extremely mixed results. The teachers' union, the UFT, has recently had a field day by calling attention the mayor's......

Randi Weingarten, United Federation of Teachers president, is using the reading rugs in city classrooms as a latest issue to be used in teachers' contract negotiations with the city. The union says reading rugs used in pre-K till second grade are "havens for skin flakes, insect parts, rodent droppings and other unhealthy gunk." Though this information is based on only nine schools (which do not have vacuums or custodians who will vacuum), Gothamist still says,......