By Claudia Rahman-Dujarric | New York Post
As a parent, the most important decision I’ve made is where my son should go to school. Looking around at the options in my neighborhood in the South Bronx, I panicked: The district schools in my zone were among the lowest-performing in the city.
Thousands of students, most of them black and Latino, have graduated from these schools for decades unable to read at grade level. I was determined that my son wouldn’t be one of them.
By Nicholas Simmons | The Wall Street Journal
Over the past three school years, I unintentionally participated in a tragic educational case study on the west side of Harlem. I worked in the same building as the Wadleigh Secondary School, at which 0% of students in grades six through eight met state standards in math or English. That isn’t a typo: Not a single one of the 33 students passed either exam, though many of the questions are as straightforward as “What is 15% of 60?”
By Keshia Clukey | Politico NY
ALBANY — The vast majority of school districts and teachers’ unions seem to be having difficulty coming to an agreement on a new teacher evaluation system supported by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
As of the end of last week, only 12 plans had been approved, with another 47 submitted for review, according to the state education department. There are 674 districts statewide.
The new evaluation system was put into place last session. It puts more emphasis on students’ state test scores, and has been met with criticism, including from the state Board of Regents, which put in place a waiver system to delay the implementation.
By Derrell Bradford | NYCAN Blog
I have been thinking and writing a lot about race lately, and more recently race in New York. I remember when I moved here in the mid ‘90s I thought the city would be a melting pot dream, lots of different people playing and living near and with one another. Instead I found a New York that was deeply divided. For me it was Manhattan below 96th street; where the trains ran on time, the cops were present, and the delivery guys always showed up. But with everything else, you took your chances. New Yorkers hung out in small groups that were professional or educational cliques where the only way in was to be a card-carrying member or to have the right degree. Most surprisingly, New Yorkers didn’t hang out “together.” I’d go one place and it was all white. I’d go another and it was all black. New York was like a mosaic; from a distance it was beautiful and fluid but up close it was just lots of little single-color tiles separated by hard lines of concrete.
By Jessica Franco Ramos | New York Post
New York City families have had enough. After two years of broken promises by Mayor de Blasio, we’re ready to take a stand.
On Wednesday, tens of thousands of families are going to speak directly to City Hall, to show the mayor we’re not going to stand any longer for a separate and unequal education system that divides New York and hurts children of color most of all.
StudentsFirstNY kicked off the 2015-2016 schools year with a massive citywide grassroots effort across New York City’s 100 lowest performing schools. The goal: to alert parents in each of the 100 worst schools in New York City as measured by proficiency on the New York state math and ELA tests. All of these schools had proficiency rates below 10%, meaning that at least nine out of ten students failed to pass the tests. Many of these 100 schools are part of Mayor de Blasio’s Renewal and Community schools that did not show sufficient progress last year. This comprehensive action is the latest effort by the leading education reform organization StudentsFirstNY to empower parents in traditional public schools to speak up, take action and advocate for improving school quality and expanding parent choice.
By Lisa Colangelo | New York Daily News
“A group of education advocates spent the first days of classes trying to mobilize parents at the city’s 100 worst-performing schools, saying Mayor de Blasio’s recently unveiled agenda is not enough.
Community organizers from StudentsFirstNY said they mapped out and then visited each of 100 sites where few or no students passed vital statewide tests.”
The New York Times Editorial Board
The education initiatives that Mayor Bill de Blasio outlined in a long-awaited speech earlier this week, though modest in scope, address some serious challenges facing the largest school system in the country. Collectively, they call for $186 million in new city investment, and in the abstract they appear wholly worthy. But the city has yet to provide details on how the initiatives will be rolled out or the benchmarks against which they will be judged. And for the reforms to fully realize their potential, some failing schools may have to be shut down and completely restaffed and restructured.
By Campbell Brown | New York Post
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a number of worthy education initiatives on Wednesday — expanding computer science programming, increasing college readiness and pledging that every child will read at grade level by third grade.
On the face of it, all good. All the research shows that third-grade literacy is the critical indicator of future success. That’s why every big-city school superintendent around the country makes it a core priority from the start.
By Keshia Clukey | Politico New York
“ALBANY — Campbell Brown, the former news anchor turned anti-teacher tenure advocate, is hoping her keynote address Wednesday night to the Business Council of New York State’s annual conference will spur its members to focus attention on education reform.
“The Business Council obviously is enormously influential in the state with our political leaders,” she said, in an interview.”