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 ›

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 ›

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 ›

After a long legal battle, the NYC Education Department released individual performance rankings of 18,000 public school teachers yesterday. The data came with a particular caveat to media: “The purpose of these reports is not to look at any individual score in isolation ever,” said the DOE's chief academic officer, Shael Polakow-Suransky. “No principal would ever make a decision on this score alone and we would never invite anyone—parents, reporters, principals, teachers—to draw a conclusion based on this score alone.” And of course, that's exactly what the local dailies have been doing. But at least one fun piece of pop culture trivia was revisited because of it: one of those teachers was the inspiration for a character on The Simpsons! And based on the data, he's a terrible teacher. more ›

Fresh from his gambling-happy State of the State address Governor Cuomo today introduced his $132.5 billion 2012 budget and while it is less agressive than last year's slice and dice budget it still manages to be tough on unions. Teacher evaluations sure look like the future in New York State! more ›

Some folks like to complain that teachers, with their summer vacations and school breaks, get too much vacation. But many teachers would heartily disagree. To wit: Hot on the heels of the teacher who allegedly faked their daughter's death for vacation time comes the story of Mona Lisa Tello, a Manhattan science teacher busted today for claiming she had jury duty when she didn't [PDF]. How'd they catch her? Well, it didn't help that she spelled "trail" instead of "trial," "sited" instead of "cited" and "manger" instead of "manager" in a letter she forged to her boss. Whoops! more ›

It's bad enough that teachers have to inculcate The Future according to the whims of state bureaucrats while dodging acid and waiting for the mayoral axe to fall on their school. Can't a pedagogue pad around the classroom in Crocs and a Black Flag t-shirt in peace? The principal of an East Village elementary school was fed up with the slovenly appearance of his staff, and instituted a dress code banning spaghetti straps, flip-flops, gym clothes and—gasp—jeans. "We want to transform this school to make it a more professional learning environment," Marlon Hosang, principal of P.S. 64, tells DNAinfo. No word on whether teachers are still allowed to trade their sandwiches for Dunkaroos. more ›

A Rockland County teacher is catching flack for telling her second grade class that Santa Claus isn't real. According to the Post, the "evil educator" made the factually true statement during a geography lesson, after some of her students claimed to know where the North Pole was because "that's where Santa lives." Ah, kids. Everyone knows Santa lives in Boca Raton, and hasn't delivered toys since 1984, when he outsourced his business to a company in Taiwan. more ›

After CBS 2 noticed an interesting quote Michael Bloomberg gave regarding education this week (in a hypothetical world, if he could—and he can't—he "would cut the number of teachers in half, but you would double the compensation of them, and you would weed out all the bad ones") the Mayor's office has been working hard to clarify just what he meant. Luckily, today at the announcement of a new Facebook office, Hizzoner got the chance and turned the tables, blaming the media, Capital reports. "Nothing I've said in Boston I haven't said for the last ten years," Bloomberg said. "I don't know why you have't paid attention." more ›

[Update below] Mayor Bloomberg was apparently full of interesting things to say while talking at MIT this week. Not only did he refer to the NYPD as "my own army" but he also apparently expressed a very, shall we say, interesting view on how he would fix the city's schools in a perfect world: "if I had the ability, which nobody does really, to just design a system and say, ‘ex cathedra, this is what we’re going to do,’ you would cut the number of teachers in half, but you would double the compensation of them, and you would weed out all the bad ones." more ›

More belt-tightening from City Hall: Mayor Bloomberg released a 72-page report detailing his office's plans to stem next year's projected budget gap of $4.6 billion. Though some fees will be considerably higher, according to the Post, the measures avoid the third-rails of teachers layoffs and cutting back the NYPD's numbers. more ›

After aligning themselves with the Occupy Wall Street movement, the United Federation of Teaches believes the NYPD has put their offices under constant surveillance. "I'll put it this way," UFT President Michael Mulgrew tells NY1, "We are a very safe building at this point in time since we seem to have all our exits and entrances are all being watched." more ›

A reverend in the Bronx was arrested earlier this month in Florida after it came to light that he cashed nearly a quarter million in pension checks that were sent to a dead city school teacher. Though Maria Sicardo died on April 23, 2000, the Reverend Victor Rosa, who lived in the same building as her, kept cashing the monthly $2,084-$2,351 checks that were issued to her until 2010. In total investigators say that Rosa bilked the teacher's pension fund of more than $241,000. 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 ›

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 ›

Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg's bromance has gotten off to a rocky start. Cuomo wowed Albany by passing a money-saving budget on time, Bloomberg deemed the resulting cuts to New York City "an outrage." The two have vehemently disagreed in the past on the Last In First Out policy for the state's teachers, which the mayor said kicks "some of our best teachers to the curb," while the governor compared Bloomberg's favored bill to the one limiting collective bargaining efforts in Wisconsin. Now, sources tell the Post that the mayor is cutting Cuomo out of the planning efforts for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in part because the governor removed Christopher Ward—"a Bloomberg guy"—from the head post at the Port Authority. more ›

Ever since old people and Fox News hopped on the sexting train, we thought maybe the art of sexual texting had mercifully started to go out of fashion. But it seems that some teachers just can't enjoy inappropriately flirting with students unless there's some sort of digital trace to later be used against them. For two city teachers and one assistant principal, that was exactly the case recently. more ›

Previously we told you that it was time to make a career move to the MTA. Sure, the hours are long, but you could while them away with dreaming of your massive pension. Forget that: public education, now that's where the money is. Bloomberg News reports that Long Island school superintendent James Hunderfund is entitled to a net salary of around $540,000 from the combination of his $316K pension he earned at a previous job along with his current $225K salary from the Malverne school district. more ›

Yesterday the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a high school principal was justified in punishing a student who called her a douchebag because she made the totally dick move of canceling the school's battle of the bands. Now another judge has ruled that a teacher who allegedly called some high school juniors a salty word in Spanish can also be punished—just not so harshly. You may recall that Carlos Garcia, a teacher at the High School of International Business and Finance in Washington Heights, was fined $15,000 for using a word that the tabloids are too decorous to print. But we think we know what it was. more ›

Sharpen your pitchforks and burn your Brooks Brothers, because the "fat cat" members of the city's unions are planning to protest against Wall Street's callous disregard for humanity lopsided profits and Bloomberg's slash-and-burn policies on May 12. Billed as "The Day We Made Wall Street Stand Still" (they'll also have to shut down Hillstone), members of the United Federation of Teachers, 1199 SEIU and the Coalition for the Homeless will attempt to shame the well-heeled folks who "wrecked our economy and are back to making billions in profits and lavish bonuses, while the rest of us are still cleaning up the mess," the Daily News reports. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have been wrangling for months over how best to reform LIFO, the "last-in first-out" teacher firing policy. One such idea that has been proposed is for principals to be given more power with their recommendations as to who should be fired or not. But there's one downside to this: what if your principal is a crazy lunatic out to get you? more ›

The good news is the city's Education Department said that a majority of staffers removed to the city's infamous Rubber Rooms last June are out. The bad, or at least questionable news, is that a "majority" of those are back in the classrooms. Under an agreement between the city and the teachers' union, all 744 teachers in the rubber rooms had to have their cases resolved by the end of 2010. Now 38% of the teachers have been removed from the city's payroll, and the rest are teaching again. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo have been playing nice with each other recently, despite some tension over the latest dire budget cuts. But the battle over the teacher firing policy "last-in, first-out" (LIFO) is tearing them apart, Lisa! more ›

Other states love it when Mayor Bloomberg lectures them on how to run things in their quaint provincial governments. Arizona really appreciated it when Bloomberg sent investigators to do a hidden camera sting at a gun show, and now it's Wisconsin's turn to get advice from Bloomberg, who has repeatedly denied he's running for president while busting out presidential-sounding talking points. In an op-ed in the NY Times today, the mayor sympathizes with Wisconsin legislators' need to balance the budget, while also siding with unions' right to bargain collectively: more ›

After months of criticism from the likes of Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, president of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten announced a plan to overhaul the "last-in, first-out" (LIFO) teacher firing system. Weingarten proposed that tenured teachers who are rated unsatisfactory by their principals will be given a maximum of one school year to improve, and if not, can be fired within 100 days. But there may be even harsher legislation coming that could spell doom for thousands more teachers much sooner. more ›

Mayor Bloomberg's "bleak budget," to be announced today, will include laying off 4,666 teachers. According to the NY Times, "The mayor, according to a preview of his budget released on Wednesday, will threaten to eliminate 6,166 teaching positions in total: 4,666 through layoffs and 1,500 through attrition. That would reduce the 75,000-person teaching force by 8 percent, and it would be the first time the city has laid off significant numbers of teachers since the 1970s." more ›

Leading up to the unveiling of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's first budget proposal, Mayor Bloomberg ominously warned that as many as 21,000 teacher layoffs could occur because of cuts. Then, he backpedaled from that statement, promising, "We'll have to find another way." Now that the dire budget proposal has been revealed, Bloomberg has gone back to sounding the alarm for teachers...we think? more ›